My wrong prediction
The other day my friend Ken asked me (and the other Popehat contributors) for feedback on his idea of blogging about his depression. He specifically wondered if various folks on the net would attack him for it.
I'm not a personal friend of Vox's, but I am an acquaintance (I have roughly as many political points of agreement with Vox as I do with Ken, so we run in the same circles, even if I'm not a card carrying member of the "Dread Ilk"), and I thought the idea that Vox would attack Ken for the post was a bit far fetched – I thought Vox wouldn't stoop to that level.
So I responded:
Ken,
As someone who wrestled the black dog for a decade or more (thankfully, tho, not in the last 15 years or so), I'm a huge fan of your posts on this topic.
The cost of writing is centralized (your effort, your potential embarrassment (not that I think there's anything remotely embarrassing about it)) , and the benefit is widespread. Which is to say, in pure market terms, it's "not worth it" for you to write on the topic.
…but it makes the world a better place.
Re Vox: he's not a friend of mine, but he is an acquaintance. If he says shit, I'll rain hell-fire on him.
And then, after Ken put up his great post, I tweeted
1/ I really really REALLY hate it when someone opens up and a thousand people say "Oh, so brave!". …bc it's usually not remotely brave.
— ClarkHat (@ClarkHat) May 21, 2015
2/ That said, this post by Ken of @popehat is damned brave and I'm even more impressed by him today than I was before http://t.co/2WXKN6TgAf
— ClarkHat (@ClarkHat) May 21, 2015
and I stand by that.
And now it turns out that Vox has – exactly as some expected, and exactly contrary to my own predictions – attacked Ken for the contents of his post.
The raining of hell-fire – a desire I don't have at the moment
I told Ken I'd rain hell-fire on Vox, but now that it comes down to it, I realize that I'm not angry – I'm sad. I'm not sad for Ken's sake – Ken is a big boy and can take a bit of name calling on the net. I'm sad because I thought Vox was made of better stuff.
Actually, I still do. Vox is a performance artist par excellence, but he's also a crisp thinker, and usually not a name-caller. He understands that the effect of deflating someone's argument through logic and facts is a thousand times better than calling them names.
…which isn't to say that Vox doesn't call names. He does. He often does it in a cutesy way where what he says is – technically – not name-calling. "I was just stating a fact – the guy is short, given the median height of Canadians, which is 5' 9.8" according to a UNESCO survey I'm linking to."
Vox does this, I think, because years of playing war games and fighting MMA has taught him a fair bit about tactics, and he realizes that these feints lead his opponents to – well, I could invoke some phrases from Clausewitz or Jomini, but, in the parlance of our times, "lose their shit" is appropriate and isn't overstating it – and then he can step back and point, shrug, and say "see what I mean?"
This may be good tactics, but I'm not in love with it, and – as someone who's got a decent measure of respect for Vox – I wish he wouldn't do it.
So, anyway, I'd like to explain why I respect Ken, why I respect Vox, and why I think that the politics of personal attack are uncool, and why I wish both my friend and my e-acquaintance wouldn't do it.
My friend Ken
I'm proud to call Ken a friend, and I only hope that I've earned enough of his respect so that he chooses to use the same word for me.
I've met a lot of impressive people in my time on the planet, and Ken is near the very top of the list. He's whip-smart, he's compassionate, he almost always sides with the underdog, he started out as a federal prosecutor but had the strength of character admit that maybe the other side had the better ethical argument, he built a law firm from scratch, he's a great family man – basically, I haven't come across an area where Ken is not devs above the mean.
– and, on a personal note, when I was deep deep in the shit once years ago, he answered the proverbial 3am phone call and saved my ass (full details some other time, but, if you think "subpoenas, a briefcase full of money, and expert advice on how much lime to use to dissolve a body", you're off in the right direction).
You can't buy loyalty like that, and if you could, you couldn't afford it.
And even I, who sing Ken's praises, was a bit surprised by his blog post the other day. Not surprised, overly, at the contents, but surprised at the balls he had to publish it, knowing that people would use it against him.
There's the old saw that bravery isn't the absence of fear: bravery is being afraid and doing the right thing anyway.
Ken's posts on depression help people – the most vulnerable and despised people out there: the sad sacks, the "slackers", the people who "just need to buck up and start getting shit done".
As I said in my forum post, quoted above, when Ken does one of these posts, the benefit accrues to dozens or hundreds of nobodies, and the the costs all land on Ken's shoulders.
And Ken does it anyway.
DAMN.
I'd like to be half the man Ken is some day.
My acquaintance Vox Day
Popehat.com is a civil liberties blog, and because Ken is fashionably, but discretely, left of center, the entire tone of the blog and of the readership averages left of center.
So, when I say "I've got a lot of respect for Vox Day", I expect to be met with hisses and boos.
Well fuck that shit: listen up, people.
Vox, like Ken, is a thoroughly impressive person. Back when most of us were farting around in college, Vox managed to bootstrap a band that cranked out some top-40 hits (amusing note: I actually picked up one of his band's CDs used about 20 years ago, a decade before I ever encountered the modern incarnation of Vox). Aside from music, Vox is also a very good fiction writer, putting many of his more respectable peers to shame. His organizational skills are fantastic, and he's bootstrapped not just his own online brand and followers, but mobilized them in a culture war against the SJWs for the control of the Hugo (a large blog post on this topic is half written, by the way). He's launched a science fiction publishing company seeming in his spare time, he's edited books, he's recruited top authors, and more. …and all of this in his spare time between doing game design, raising a family, and playing in a soccer league.
You can say that Vox's political opinions are terribly wrong. You can say that Vox is mean. You can say that he's cruel.
…but anyone who says that Vox is stupid, illogical, or lazy is just revealing themselves as either ignorant (the best case) or dishonest (the worst case).
If anyone hear thinks that Vox is dumb, I encourage you to hold your nose, read his blog for a week, and actually think about his arguments. You might think his axioms are wrong, but if you're honest with yourself, you won't think that his logic is flawed.
The Ken and Vox slap fight
I'm not exactly sure when the Ken and Vox started going at it, but my hunch is that Ken started it. I know that at least a few years ago Ken said something along the lines of "Vox looks like he gets his haircuts at the same place he got his lobotomy".
Sigh.
I really wish that when Ken wanted to attack someone's ideas, he just attacked their ideas, instead of making fun of them personally. But, as a wise man once said
@ClarkHat "Fucking fish, always swimming!"
— Popehat (@Popehat) May 23, 2015
Maybe that was the first slap in the fight. Maybe it was the 400th. But, yeah, my money is that Ken started this. And then Vox responded in kind.
But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Vox started it, and Ken responded in kind.
Anyway: I respect both of these guys, and I wish they wouldn't be dicks.
I'm going to respond to Vox's post, because it's handy.
First, I think that Vox is honest when he says:
Now, I don't wish disease of any kind on anyone. I never have and never will. I would very much like for everyone, even those who most hate me, to be healthy, happy, and well.
…but this is part of Vox's standard style, where all of the words of his posts are calm and unobjectionable, so when they're quote later they look like the most innocent things…but the overall gestalt is carefully engineered to provoke at an emotional level.
I admit that I've used exactly the same technique in my time. It's effective, it's clever – and on my better days, I think it's a bad thing. So, yes, I think Vox is telling the truth when he says this…but when this is sandwiched into a post that starts with the subject line "What part of 'cruelty artist' don't you understand?" and ends with the advice for Ken to get off the internet because, presumable, Ken is too fragile and delicate to handle the manly give-and-take of no-holds-barred intellectual action…well, I don't think one is really going out on a limb when one declares the whole bit of performance art a carefully designed bit of cruelty.
What is Vox trying to achieve with this post? What do we monkeys ever try to achieve in our social machinations? We intend to increase the status of ourselves and our teams, and we intend to mock, ridicule, and degrade the status of the opposing team.
So when Vox writes
When I read Ken's post about his breakdown and his struggles, my overwhelming impression was sheer bewilderment. He might as well have written it in Chinese for all that I related to it.
he's saying, translated into monkey code: "Sad pink Ken SJW team: girly, weak and uncool. Awesome blue Vox PUA team: benchpress, squat, awesome awesome hoo-ah!"
Well, I call bullshit.
Vox is pretty awesome (sorry, SJWs) in a bunch of ways.
…and Ken is pretty awesome in at least as many.
So I'm not buying into Vox's narrative. It takes a certain kind of moral strength to fight when outnumbered, when scorned by the establishment, when mocked by all the cool people (hat tip to Vox). But it takes a different and at least equally good kind of moral strength to voluntarily expose personal weakness, for no better reason than because the act of exposure helps others (hat tip to Ken).
And you know what? Ken isn't lacking in the first kind of bravery either. Look at him wade into the Vox's lion den.
A call to slap no more
All men are mortal. Socrates is a man.
– wait –
What I meant to say is: All human are sinners. I'm a human. Therefore I'm a sinner.
I've gotten catty on the internet. I've name called. I've mocked people for their personal traits instead of engaging with their arguments.
I think this is a crappy way to behave, and at least every now and then I promise myself I'll do better in the future.
Ken and Vox also get catty and engage in name-calling.
I wish they wouldn't.
I'm not going to call on either of them to apologize. Not only because I don't know who started the spat, but because "calls for apology" are a bullshit SJW tactic: they're a power play, implicitly promising absolution and forgiveness and return to the fold in return for ritual humiliation.
Neither Ken nor Vox need absolution from me, because they haven't sinned against me.
…and neither needs to, nor should, apologize to each other, because given our current caustic culture war, apologies are just status lowering struggle-session rituals.
Here's what I do suggest, not just for Ken and Vox, but for all of us:
That we examine our behaviors with regard to name calling, and that we examine our motivations.
For those of us who identify as Christian, I further suggest that we reflect on the definition of cruelty – "pleasure in causing pain and suffering".
I suggest that it is entirely reasonable for a Christian to engage in rigorous ideological warfare, even if this accidentally causes butt-hurt and bruises when pretty lies are destroyed.
…but it is not, I suggest, What Jesus Would Do, to take active delight in causing pain or suffering.
In my ideal world, ideological antagonists would fight bitterly with each other, but they would do so virtuously:
Prudence (φρόνησις, phronēsis): also described as wisdom, the ability to judge between actions with regard to appropriate actions at a given time.
Justice (δικαιοσύνη, dikaiosynē): also considered as fairness, the most extensive and most important virtue.
Temperance (σωφροσύνη, sōphrosynē): also known as restraint, the practice of self-control, abstention, and moderation tempering the appetition.
Courage (ἀνδρεία, andreia): also named fortitude, forbearance, strength, endurance, and the ability to confront fear, uncertainty, and intimidation.
This is my modest proposal.
Signed,
a sinner.
Last 5 posts by Clark
- Clark's Farewell To Popehat - December 30th, 2015
- The Current Refugee Crisis - November 18th, 2015
- Top Seven Things I Like About Internet Shame Mobs - July 29th, 2015
Gamer Gate vs Anti Gamer GateA Civil Discussion on Inclusiveness - June 23rd, 2015- Two Kinds of Freedom of Speech (or #Strangeloop vs. Curtis Yarvin) - June 10th, 2015
Dear Clark:
I appreciate your kind words, and am happy to count you as a friend.
I respectfully but forcefully disagree with your assessment of Vox — just as he likely forcefully disagrees with your assessment of me.
However, I do not feel moved to disagree with you at length, and Vox hasn't said anything I've noticed this week that merits the attention of a fisking, as far as I'm concerned.
I suppose I could start reacting to Vox without slaps and name-calling and such. But I react to a lot of people that way. It wouldn't be honest.
Good Lord. You love to hear yourself "talk" don't you Clarkhat? Brevity is the soul of wit; isn't that the old saw you are trying to remember? I thought Ken's blogpost was great, because it IS brave; but, also, because it was honest, and true, and real for a lot of people who need to see that they aren't alone. And who just might survive because they cling to Ken's advice, to embrace the absurdity and try to laugh if you possibly can find something to laugh about–you may survive because of it. He offered a tool that may be the key to getting through the tough times. So Bravo to Ken; a sneer to Vox; and a reminder that silence is golden to Clarkhat.
So I realize I'm missing the forest for a tiny little tree here, but could someone explain to me the "Fucking fish, always swimming!" quote?
Your assessment of this guy is just factually wrong http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Vox_Day
He bathes in anti-scientific nonsense and his arguments and conclusions very often turn out to not just be objectively false, but completely insane. If you accept the scientific method as being a good tool then you simply can't think that Vox Day is good at constructing logical arguments. Not to even get started on his vile and unscientific racism, misogyny and homophobia. If you however think the scientific method is an evil conspiracy by evil atheists then sure you can claim Vox Day is good at these things. But to claim that I'm either ignorant or dishonest because I think this anti-science hack is not logical is completely ridiculous.
Is Vox Day seriously somebody you look at and think "I want to be more like him"? Sure, he's had some career highlights (I can't agree with your assessment of the quality of his fiction, but finishing a novel and getting it published is an achievement regardless). But you're holding up mobilizing a bunch of internet trolls to burn down the Hugos in order to punish "SJWs" as an accomplishment? Any jackass can destroy. Vox doesn't just take "pleasure in causing pain and suffering," he puts what appears to be an immense amount of energy into it. That's the opposite of thoroughly impressive. Ken changing his career when he came to the realization that his work didn't comport with his ethics is impressive. Vox tearing people down? No.
Kevin, I think it is along the lines of "bitch you knew I was a snake".
It is unreasonable to expect a fish not to act in a fish-like manner, it's in their nature.
Clark,
I, on the other hand, don't disagree with your assessment of Ken. I don't know Ken, I don't care about Ken, I don't read, follow, or think about Ken. All I know is that he is a lawyer, he says he has depression, and he popped up once or twice in my Twitter notifications in a manner that led to whatever that nonsense was. I have nothing against Ken, I have no desire to attack Ken, and I don't have any desire to engage with him in a negative manner.
I am extremely busy with multiple full-time projects, not including the 850-page novel I am currently writing. And after 14 years as a minor, but controversial public figure, I have learned that once someone starts sniping at me, it saves a considerable quantity of time to deal with them in as harsh a manner as it takes to encourage them to knock it off, up to having them fired or dragged into a police station if necessary.
I am not better than you think. In fact, I am likely rather worse. Perhaps one of the few redeeming aspects of my public character is that I am not at all interested in petty personal squabbles and it is very, very easy to avoid being subjected to my ruthless side. Just leave me alone. That's literally all it takes. It's one thing to criticize my ideas, that's fine and I don't object to that sort of criticism in the slightest. But to criticize the individual who holds the objectionable ideas, that's personal and justifies personal responses. I don't know how much more I can make it than how it has been spelled out on my blog for years: I will respond in the manner addressed.
If Ken's willing to let it go with no hard feelings, I certainly am too. We don't have to like or even respect each other to simply leave each other in peace. Regardless of what Ken's honesty might compel, I don't see that there is any dire need for him to react to me at all.
TooManyJens:
We entirely disagree on "internet trolls" and "burn down the Hugos" and "in order to punish".
Given that our axioms are entirely different, I see no way to engage here, other than by fighting over the axioms. And
(a) I don't have time today to do that.
(b) I've got about a thousand words of blog post written on the subject. I need to finish it.
But, to be clear, given my axioms re the Sad Puppies / Rabid Puppies, yes, I think it is an accomplishment.
jimmythefly:
Yes, that's my reading of Ken's "fish swim" comment as well.
Gunnar:
Did you just link to Rational Wiki to support an assertion about "facts"?
It is to lol.
I consider myself a rationalist, but – come on – Rational Wiki?
I disagree with every claim you make here. Sorry.
I am quite a fan of the scientific method. One of the things I respect about Vox is that so is he, and the fact that he is better at understanding science than most Neil Degrasse Tyson fanboys is one of the things that drives the SJWs rabid.
If you think that VD is an anti-science hack, then, yes, I think you're ignorant.
By definition VD is an anti-science hack. He believes things that go against the scientific method and uses unscientific arguments to back up these beliefs. If you think for example creationism is compatible with the scientific method then you're just objectively wrong. The fact that you responded to me by attacking rationalwiki and calling me ignorant makes me think there's no hope in reaching you on this. You simply do not believe the scientific method is accurate.
That's…a pretty weird series of sentences, really. "He's not usually a name-caller. Except that he calls people names. Except that when he does it, he's not technically calling them names." (Out of curiosity, which category does "educated but ignorant half-savage" fall under?)
It's about as internally consistent as, say, acknowledging that Vox likes to say controversial things "carefully engineered to provoke", and then following it up by saying that you disagree with the assessment that he is an Internet troll.
The man is not a very nice person, and in particular he's not very nice to people who don't belong to the same set of demographics as himself, and I don't think it takes disagreeing with his politics to see that.
I think rather a lot of people could have foreseen "insulting people who are not neurotypical" as the sort of thing Vox Day would do. No matter how many successful bands he's managed.
Is there a way to get a popehat RSS feed that contains only a subset of the authors? E.g. the headers advertise the existence of "https://www.popehat.com/author/ken/feed" with only Ken's posts, but it seems to be defunct, and redirects to a global feed for the whole site.
I really enjoy reading Popehat, but for multiple reasons I now feel like I really only desire a subset of it.
I usually just silently disagree with you Clark (well, I'm usually always a lurker regardless of the writer or topic), but your writing here made me want to ask one question:
You admire Ken because he fights for the underdog – even at a personal cost, and yet you also admire Vox. Regardless of every other terribly objectionable thing about Vox, I think one thing is very clear about him: he delights in "kicking down." His favorite targets are women and minorities fighting for equality, but in this case Vox is delighted to attack someone who opened up about his own personal demons as a way to help others. I just want to know how you can admire Ken for fighting to protect and help the disadvantaged, and also admire someone with the almost literal opposite personality trait. I just don't understand that.
At times like this I am grateful for people like Popehat who will defend the 'anti-science hack' even when by 'people' I mean no one except for Popehat. And for that I'm grateful. But my, what a strange position to be in!
@Annoyed:
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're new and don't know that I've repeatedly said how much I despise it when people ask that.
RationalWiki is an excellent illustration of the danger of trusting people because they scorn the people you scorn.
I enjoy when they throw elbows at people I don't like, and enjoy their facility and wit with it. But if I'm ever tempted to see that as objective or neutral, I only have to stray a bit — say, to their bizarre and dishonest attack on FIRE — to circle back and question whether I just agreed with them before because I didn't the targets.
Jesus, Clark. I used to take pride in my non-conformity and non-tribalism, in my willingness to take the side of my friend's enemy when I thought justice so required, as a point of honor. But you take it to a level of gratuitousness that puts me to shame.
@Ken: You are correct in your assumption that I did not know that. Sorry for asking.
I'm thoroughly skeptical when people start babbling about "SJWs." It seems to mean nothing more than "people I don't like who are left of center." So if your argument is that Vox is a good man and worthy of respect because he's intelligent and attacks people you dislike, Clark, you might want to reexamine your criteria for goodness and respectability.
@Ken White
Linking to Rationalwiki was just a way to link to one page that had collected a lot of Vox Day's racism, misogyny, homophobia, conspiracy nuttery and general anti-scientific nonsense. Regardless if the quotes from Vox Day were collected on Rationalwiki, Wikipedia or Conservapedia is completely irrelevant to anything I said. His quotes and cited blog posts that are copied and sourced on there speak for themselves.
My attack on Vox Day's anti-scientific nonsense is from the perspective of a biologist btw. I've seen a lot of anti-scientific nonsense over the years and I'm somewhat familiar with Vox Day's creationist arguments, and I have dismissed them as completely nonsensical and generally awful. Now this Clark dude is telling me that I'm either being dishonest or illogical because I think Vox Day is peddling anti-scientific nonsense and I dismiss the idea of him as a serious thinker. Clark probably doesn't even realize that by his argument he's dismissing most of the biologists (and probably most scientists) on this planet as either being dishonest or illogical, but that is what he's doing by claiming those are the two options if you think Vox Day is bad at logic.
Who is Vox Day and why should anyone give a [digested meal] what he says or thinks?
Is that his real name, anyway? Sounds like a play on a Latin phrase to me. Maybe his parents were Mr. and Mrs. Day and they named him for his insistent bawling when he was a baby?
I don't know enough about Vox Day to have an opinion about him. I think before this I had only ever heard of him thanks to George R. R. Martin's recent blog posts about the "Sad/Rabid Puppy" campaign. I was a huge SF fan when I was a kid in the '70s, but somewhere around 1980 or so I started to realize that there was a much bigger, more interesting world out there, so I began to explore that bigger world and haven't paid all that much attention to SF since then.
So my question is this: Why is it that in the comments above, there are several references to VD being "anti-science", "believing things that go against scientific method", etc…. but not a single concrete example? What, specifically, does VD believe that is "anti-science", and where is it documented that he believes it? I find that when people make vague accusations of that sort, often they aren't actually true. Sometimes the person in question believes something that isn't compatible with current intellectual fashions, but is not actually factually wrong or contrary to scientific method. Would someone mind actually substantiating these claims?
Oh, and I should add that I agree completely with Clark's assessment of Ken's post about depression. It wasn't at all what I expect from Popehat, but in its own way it was very impressive.
@Craig
You could just click the Rationalwiki link for a collection of his stuff. It links to various blog posts by Vox Day himself. He's a creationist and a self described "anti-materialist" which is basically code for anti-science.
Other than his really bad arguments against science he's also known for his vile homophobia ("Homosexuality is a birth defect from every relevant secular, material, and sociological perspective…[we must] help them achieve sexual normality."), misogyny ("Ironically, in light of the strong correlation between female education and demographic decline, a purely empirical perspective on Malala Yousafzai, the poster girl for global female education, may indicate that the Taliban's attempt to silence her was perfectly rational and scientifically justifiable."), racism and just general conspiracy nuttery.
Yes, he actually wrote that the Taliban was "perfectly rational and scientifically justifiable" for trying to murder Malala. This should tell you something about his anti-science quackery and the way he uses "scientific arguments" to promote his vile ideology.
Nice post Clark, I think both sides were acting a little childish, and seemed to enjoy fighting someone who fought back without serious malice behind it. Now it seems it got a little out of hand, so bad on everyone, and hug and get back to good natured ribbing.
As to the people saying Vox Day is a racist. I just read his last 2 weeks of posts and while he seems to have some- unsavory- viewpoints he backs them up with what appears to well researched facts.
You know, people love to slammer Beale for his racism and sexism, but nobody ever mentions he's a rabid anti-vaxxer. Truly the mark of a man who understands science.
"Who is Vox Day and why should anyone give a [digested meal] what he says or thinks?"
This sums up my feelings perfectly. After seeing Clark's post, I read this Vox Day guy's post — the first thing I ever read by him, I believe, and likely the last. Just from that one post I get a strong sense that he is a douche — and that he is really insecure. DO NOT CROSS HIM ON THE INTERNET OR HE SHALL DESTROY YOU!!!
… by, like, talking really tough, or something.
If you think for example creationism is compatible with the scientific method then you're just objectively wrong.
I suppose you'll claim that Robert Jastrow, founder of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies at NASA, is objectively wrong too: "It appears that the Universe was constructed within very narrow limits, in such a way that man could dwell in it. This result is called the anthropic principle. It is the most theistic result ever to come out of science in my view. I really do not know what to make of this result."
Or how about Hawking: “The whole history of science has been the gradual realization that events do not happen in an arbitrary manner, but that they reflect a certain underlying order, which may or may not be divinely inspired”.
The belief that an intelligent agent created the universe is not incompatible with science. Just the opposite, actually.
he's a rabid anti-vaxxer
That statement makes you either illiterate or dishonest.
From Vox's piece ; "If you are weak, then for the love of God and anything else in which you happen to believe, do not attack the strong!"
Vox Day is not an intelligent man using shock tactics to make relevant points or cleverly challenge convention or supposition. Vox Day is an asshole who uses that notion as a cheap facade to mask terrible behavior. He's not "strong" to other peoples' "weak", he's just your typical twit who puts excessive effort into trying to find that line of social convention where he can be as offensive as possible without actually breaking a law or provoking someone into attacking him physically. As for the name calling thing, calling or not caling names is not the mark of a person's quality, the quality of their arguments or any other aspect of objective evaluation. Calling Vox Day an asshole does not violate any taboo nor does it invalidate my opinion, its a title he was put considerable effort into earning and I apply it with no doubt whatsoever as to its validity.
That's absolutely retarded. To say "the Universe was constructured… [so] that man could dwell in it" assumes a theistic viewpoint to begin with, and gets cause and effect backwards. A more sensible way of looking at it is that the nature of the universe determines what kind of creatures will develop within it. If the universe were different, we wouldn't be here, but some other, different kind of creatures would be; and perhaps they too would wonder why the universe seemed to be designed specifically to allow them to exist. So Jastrow is basically putting the cart before the horse.
Hawking's comment is much better, but doesn't mean what you seem to think it means. That the universe has an underlying order (i.e. it isn't just pure chaos) is pretty obvious; why it has that particular order, though, may never be proven, and he doesn't pretend to have the answer. When he says it "may or may not be divinely inspired", he's just declining to take sides on a question which he knows perfectly well we don't have any way to answer definitively.
@Elijah Rhodes
You don't really understand what Stephen Hawking is saying. He certainly accepts biological evolution as a scientific fact unlike Vox Day. But we're not going to agree on this here. Let me ask you about Vox Day's claim that it's "perfectly rational and scientifically justifiable" for the Taliban to murder Malala. Do you agree with Vox Day that it is in fact "scientifically justifiable"? If not, do you think it's fair of me to say that his statement that murdering her is "scientifically justifiable" is in fact an anti-scientific statement? Does this make me ignorant and/or dishonest to claim he's making nonsensical anti-scientific statements that are not logical in this particular case? Looking forward to your answer and how you will try to rationalize this vile misogyny.
@Thad:
Indeed. Clark, Vox is showing you what he is. This isn't an uncharacteristic action. It's him.
Annoyed says
I really enjoy reading Popehat, but for multiple reasons I now feel like I really only desire a subset of it.
You can have that; just do as I do. Ignore posts by anybody you do not care to read.
So, basilly you promised a friend, who, buy your own words was there for you when you needed it. Who you , by your words admire that if A happenend you would do B. When A happens you spend several hundred words justifying doing not B. Completely consistent with everything I have read from you. I'm glad I never had the misfortune of knowing you.
Clark,
I've disagreed with you on almost every point you've made in the years I've been reading Popehat, but you're not cut from the same rotted cloth as Vox Day.
You've shared some pieces of your own experiences with depression, and I'm actually personally grateful to you for pointing out Allie Brosh's Hyperbole and a Half depression posts. Vox Day has contempt for people like you and me, and even somehow for Ken, Bearer of the Golden Riding Crop, though he it is who stands, alone, betwixt us and the ravening pony hordes. I hope you learn to see Mr. Day more clearly from this.
Also you forgot the hellfire. That was barely a sparkler.
Clark, as I read this, we have your friend who did a brave thing, balanced against an acquaintance who, I think you would agree, acted like an asshole. This should be an easy call. This is not the time for conciliation, but for condemnation of the act. This reads like nothing more than an attempt to salve your own conscience, either for your admittedly wrong prediction or your sentiments towards "Mr. Day."
edit: post is fragmented due to rewording to placate the spam filter after posting a link.
First time I've ever read a VD post, but all three of his bullet points made perfect sense despite how caustically he expressed them. Pointless internet slap fights are not good for people, period, and they ruin everything.
Popehat attacks used to be extensions of legal campaigns against censorious douches, and they were wonderful because they served a greater purpose in their cattiness. I stopped reading the blog regularly when they devolved into petty, purposeless, and personal name-calling.
"Punching up" vs "punching down" is just blatant tribalism. "It's only ok to hurt the outgroup".
Kevinbolk has a great comic on that, but cloudflare blocked me for trying to link it.
Politics usually involves hurting people. But doing it just for the fun of hurting them or having a good laugh with your mates is for sociopaths and SJWs.
Craig, you're not alone on SF. Stopped reading it in college, came back to it last year and found it boring and unimaginative. Most of the characters seem to exist as mouthpieces for the authors, who have even less self-awareness in their arguments than "Gunnar" here.
To be honest, though, his wring is inept and Psykosonik is bland.
Beale is a small, weak, insecure man, consumed by bitterness and jealousy of John Scalzi to the point of obsession. Theodore wants punish the world for his own inferiority. Thus the alleged "MMA" fighting (sure), the posing with flaming swords (paging Dr. Freud) and the internet thuggery.
As a libertarian with some shockingly right of center opinions, I have to say this Vox person comes across more like a very angry, somewhat intelligent 13 year-old who unfortunately believes himself to be several orders of magnitude smarter than he is.
Also, Ken, might I suggest the proverb about the scorpion riding on the back of the frog in the future, instead of fish…
Elijah Rhodes, the anthropic principle vanishes if one of the various multiverse theories is true. If there are an infinite number of universes in existence, it's no big deal if one of them is configured in a certain way.
And, really, the anthropic principle isn't any more convincing than the ontological argument that God must exist because a perfect being must exist.
There isn't, nor will there ever be, at least not of our making.
I don't blog here anymore, though I'm still the second most prolific contributor. I shall be watching this thread. Please keep things civil, as everyone has done so far.
Thank you.
@Gunnar
Nobody here needs to try to explain Vox's statement about Malala, because we can just link to his own explanation easily enough.
I don't like or agree with very much of what Vox says (largely because he seems to view virtually everything he says as part of a battle in a culture war, and skews it to attack his opponents appropriately, even when there might be some germ of truth hidden underneath it otherwise) but these constant accusations of him supporting the attack on Malala that I've been seeing everywhere since this current Hugo controversy erupted are either stupid, or purposefully intellectually dishonest. Either way, stop doing it.
You're misrepresenting his positions on evolution and vaccines as well, but I'm not going to bother trying to defend those, because I don't agree with most of them and it's not really worth my time to try to defend them. I only mention that because, despite what the wiki calls itself, there's nothing "rational" about purposefully misrepresenting an opponents position to score points over them, and it always pisses me off when I see it. It's the main reason I don't particularly like Vox Day, in fact!
(Well, there's nothing rational about it unless your goal is NOT, in fact, to reach the truth, but rather to defeat your enemies. Then, I suppose you could say that purposefully misrepresenting your opponent's argument is *gasp* "perfectly rational and scientifically justifiable." Imagine that!)
A Sow someone could be the least bit familiar with Vox and yet be surprised by his actions is mind boggling. A sad, angry troll with a seriously inflated view of his own intelligence.
That explanation just doubles down on his assertion that given an asserted "strong correlation between female education and demographic decline," murdering a poster child for female education could be "scientifically justifiable." Leaving the moral character of the statement aside, that's hardly consistent with the fiercely logical caricature Clark draws above. For someone who endlessly, monotonously claims to be brilliant, the argument that it's "scientifically justifiable" to kill a child because there's a correlation between her cause and demographic decline. There's a correlation between increased consumption of organic food and rising autism diagnoses, too; would it be "scientifically justifiable" to murder a farmer pour encourager les autres?
(We're assuming, of course, that he meant to make a cogent argument. It's more likely he meant to be daring, to further the brand.)
I think pretty much everything you need to know about Beale can be extrapolated from:
This is unquestionably and irrefutably an expression of the 'might makes right' argument, and however it's spun, it's scummy.
Freedom of speech? Sorry, you are weak and your comments are an attack on the strong, so you should stop.
Malala? She was weak, therefore…
Ken? Must be an idiot, because he spends his workdays attacking the strong on behalf of the weak.
Clark, I hate to see you so conflicted about 2 men you obviously admire. Actually, I find I'm quite disturbed by it. Especially when you dive into that plea about WWJD? Really? Jesus was a buddha. He'd have done what he had to do to take care of the situation – he did his share of yelling, name-calling and stick-brandishing in the Gospel stories. You consider Vox an "e-acquaintance" and you want him to debate "virtuously" with Ken? Methinks your tactics suck – you threatened "raining hell-fire" on Vox and then wimped out. Does that freakin' creep scare you? Have you lost you crusty acerbic anarchist (I mean that admiringly) mind?
Lucky for me, I'm not a Christian and I don't identify as female. I'm an agender Buddhist. And I'm removing my "Dr Dragonmum" face and bringing in me, Les Sinn (which by strange coincidence is my actual name). So I will say words that are true as I see them. I only know them from the 'net (although I know people who know writers who know Vox IRL), so that's what has shaped my point of view. If I were you, I'd give Ken a minor Bitch-slap and then viciously back-kick Vox in the nutsack. But that's just my opinion.
Clark, I appreciate your description of Vox as a performance artist; it gives me a bit better perspective on his schtick. Given the "anti" in many of his expressed views, I can see what attraction he has for you. Yes, he's brilliant; he has constructed an immense Vox-world, with its own social rules, heirarchy and mythos. He's positioned himself in a pseudo-intellectual gaping hole and become the god of the whiny, sniveling mysogynistic mouth-breathers that inhabit its nether-regions. He is so over-the-top that it must take an enormous, expansive intellect to keep all that crazy consistent in some sort of weird Vox-world logical way. He's also one of the nastiest narcissitic psychopaths to inhabit the planet Earth. The evil demons seem to dance at his command, as he draws the most vile thoughts out of his subjects to pour forth onto the internet – and he does it all with flair, making it seem effortless. Reading his posts and the comments is like looking beneath a rock and being blinded by the awful blackness of the anti-Christ. Some people say he's insecure, but I think he's doing pretty well at holding on to his Vox-world god-throne. I suspect much planning and deliberation go into his performance, because being Vox must be exhausting. I don't know how he sleeps at night.
Vox is earning his own karma; I'm sure he will be paying for it over many lives to come. As long as he's aware of that, well, good luck to him.
My impression of Ken, on the other hand, is an obsessive genius pit bull with a hatred of ponies; one that was rescued from a bad place and is so smart, loving, protective and loyal that he wants to fight for those who are being disadvantaged, taken advantage of or otherwise ill-used by people, companies or the government. He's generous enough that he'll even fight for Vox, if he thinks he's being unfairly prevented from spreading whatever nonsense he is spouting at the time by some 1st Ammendment wrong. His weapons are his intellect, razor-sharp wit, willingness to be intrusive and obnoxious, perserverence and cadre of eager admirers – which, in a twisted way, are some of Vox's attributes as well. Ken's also got a beautiful family to protect and nurture; my impression is he has a glow of kindness over a quite firey temper. Except for a minor tendency for a dramatic flair, I haven't detected much "performance" about Ken; just what he's said about keeping up that facade that I understand all too well. But because of that bad place, he's still got some dark holes that he occassionally gets stuck in. Luckily he has family, friends and an abundant community of support to help bring him back. Being Ken is probably exhausting too; I hope he usually sleeps well.
Ken is building his karma. I think he's quite a bit further along the path to enlightenment than Vox. He seems to be handling it just fine. I hope I see him in my next few go-arounds; he's good people.
So Clark, maybe you should just get out of the way and let them at it. I can see you not wanting your friend Ken to be hurt – but don't buy in to that Vox-world lie that mental illness = weakness or fragility. Those of us walking around with psychiatric tags are some of the strongest, toughest survivors you'll ever meet. Most of us have had to learn to fight a little dirty and make a few anti-social moves to stay in the game. I know people scramble to get out of my way when I take off my "Dr Dragonmum kind and reasonable" mask; it takes them by surprise and embarrases my husband greatly. I've seen some of Ken's moves – he can take Vox; he has more patience and more inner strength. Trust your friend, Clark – let him bitch-slap the fark out of Vox any damn way he wants!
@Vorkon
I didn't really say he "supported" the attack on Malala. I said that he thinks the attack could be considered "rational" and "scientifically justifiable". This is bad enough in itself even if he doesn't claim to outright support the attack. I'm not missing any context. The fact that he used the term "scientifically justifiable" as a form of justification for the attack says it all without me having to even explain to reasonable people why this is horrible. Even if he disagrees with the attack this quote on it's own still makes him stupid and a horrible person that uses pseudo-scientific hackery.
I haven't misrepresented any of his positions. Haven't even mentioned his anti-vaccine views. And you can't point to any specific way I have misrepresented his positions which is telling.
Clark wants to equivocate between Ken and Vox, but his mini-profiles (and a cursory knowledge of Vox's history) paint a very one-sided picture. Ken is compassionate. Vox attacks Ken's discussion of his own condition as "girly, weak and uncool," in Clark's words. Ken had "the strength of character" to leave a prestigious position to stand up for individuals' rights. Vox … well, even Clark doesn't seem to have much to say for his character. Ken "built a law firm from scratch." Vox was in a band, and wrote some stuff, and helped organize some votes on the Hugos, and so on. Ken had the "balls" to publish something personal and meaningful, "knowing that people would use it against him." Vox is a troll who insults people in ways he calculates to be infuriating in order to provoke them. Not that Ken doesn't do that, but of course, Ken also writes meaningful, substantive, insightful and deeply personal pieces. And doesn't use or rely upon racism, sexism, and other blatant bigotries to drive his own brand.
These don't seem like equivalent human beings, even by Clark's description. In character, talent, or intelligence. (As to the latter, perhaps Clark sees some equivalence I don't. I certainly don't share his opinion of Vox Day's brainpower. In my experience, people who talk incessantly about how smart they are do it because they aren't demonstrating it. Vox Day's performance is consistent with that experience.)
@Gunnar
You're absolutely right, it looks like I thought somebody else's statement about him being a rabid anti-vaxxer came from you. Probably because somebody else brought it up in a response to you, without specifying that he was responding to a different person, but that's still no excuse on my part. Sorry about that!
Everything else I said stands, though.
This is one of the reasons I'm glad I came to America. The land is so big. The choices so infinite. What will you do, worship an internet troll or join the ranks of a maligned, far-left, anti-speech movement?
@Patrick Non-White
What?! I loved your posts. I'd noticed they were few and get between recently, but I thought that was a "Patrick is busy" thing.
Why aren't you blogging here any more? Are you blogging somewhere else?
Malc
May 23, 2015 at 5:52 pm
Don't you just love warmed-over Rand (Ayn) with a hint of Heinlein wafting from the hack SF outhouse? You know how the weak and the strong are determined, Opus? Oops, sorry, I mean Ira … err …, no, no, Vox, that's it, Vox. It's easy: "Who's standing?"
@Gunnar
Pretending not to understand the strategies of the barbarians you oppose gives you prestige within your in-group. It's costly signalling to show that their violence triggers you to the point that you "can't even deal" with it, or analyze it rationally. You're privileged to be able to do this kind of moralizing because you don't have to confront their violence directly.
When your outraged hashtags stop ISIS, maybe people will pay more attention to your spluttering.
Clark, I've read nearly all of what you've written over the last 3 years (since the Oatmeal/ Chuck Carreon fiasco) here at Popehat. I've disagreed with most, but learned a lot. I've read only a little of Vox on his blog. I've disagreed with most and learned nothing. FWIW.
@Naught
You're just too stupid for me to engage with. No idea how you think you responded to anything I believe with that nonsense.
I just read some of the comments on Vox's website. People there are making derogatory comments on Ken's sexuality, gender identity, and sanity based on his depression post, and on his tolerance of people different than himself.
If that's the audience Vox attracts, I'm not staying on his website one moment longer. Conversely, if you can judge a man by his enemies, Ken has never been more awesome.
Fascinating to see a tale of two psychopathologies writ large here in the contrasts between Ken and Vox.
Ken, who describes suffering from internalizing psychopathology, writes his keen appreciation of what it is, how it's affected him and those around him, and the toll it's taken on all. He's made specific efforts to rise above it, letting his work transcend the limits self-doubt and worry might otherwise place on him. The comments about his work are thoughtful and contribute to a larger dialog.
Vox, whose externalizing psychopathology gets token mentions, describes being fundamentally uninterested in rising above the limits his personality structure imposes on him. His work as a "cruelty artist" follows suit, constraining an articulate voice with the straitjacket of cloaked hostility in which an exclusionary community is likewise constrained in its alienation and aggression. The comments follow the artist's form and provoke in-fighting rather than constructive expression.
Furthermore, if this post is the result of threats of hell-fire, then I can see why hell is increasingly a poor deterrent against unbelief.
I was taught that slapping and name calling was a sign of affection :) was that wrong should I not have done that? :),
As much as I don't agree with your assertion that you should "Just ask for help" .
I don't think you should be attacked for speaking about your experience…
After reading Clarks post I have to say Who? the name seems familiar, is this a 90's hacker thing?.
I'm not going to go on and on and on and on and on about how assume ken is but, it seems to be generating lots of traffic, if you google vox day this tread is like #8 good job.
ayup I lost it somewhere in the middle of that post, my point I had one.
Scrub tier hell-fire.
Should have trashed the post.
Meh, I wouldn't cross the street to piss on Vox if he were on fire. The problem isn't that he is stupid, mean, right wing or whatever. The problem is he is just performance art. Smart? Maybe I dunno. If so that just makes it less forgivable.
It seems to me that Vox is driven by the need for an audience. If he is right wing then that is the sense in which he is right wing. In that sense both Hitler and Stalin were right wing. It is more about psychology than politics.
Honestly, Clark, while I've often disagreed with you I've also pretty much respected you as a thinker/writer/human being. That changed when I read this. You're allying yourself with this:
"It is absurd to imagine that there is absolutely no link between race and intelligence"
and
"Ironically, in light of the strong correlation between female education and demographic decline, a purely empirical perspective on Malala Yousafzai, the poster girl for global female education, may indicate that the Taliban's attempt to silence her was perfectly rational and scientifically justifiable"
and
“a few acid-burned faces is a small price to pay for lasting marriages, stable families, legitimate children, low levels of debt, strong currencies, affordable housing, homogenous populations, low levels of crime, and demographic stability"
and
"First, there is no such thing as marital rape. Once consent is formally given in public ceremony, it cannot be revoked… If a woman believes in the concept of marital rape, absolutely do not marry her!"
and
"I noticed that the number of fake reviews of my books on Amazon declined considerably after I tracked down the woman from Minnesota and posted her address on this blog"
and
"Homosexuality is a birth defect from every relevant secular, material, and sociological perspective"
and on and on.
And if I say this guy is repugnant and misogynistic and racist and homophobic, I'm the ignorant, dishonest one?
@Grunnar, try looking at the FIRE "article" Ken linked on RW. Consider how thinking of your ingroup as "the rationalists" works to justify your sense of smug superiority over outgroup members. Maybe even grab a shot of humility to wash down all that blustering you've done in this thread.
Heh, just read Ken's comments on the VD blog–excellent, and a show of real strength of character. If you are on grindr like they insinuate, feel free to hit me up any time.
And you know what? When someone like that – someone who believes having depression is a character flaw (not to mention being female/black/gay) – comes after your friend, this type of insane equivocation is the height of moral cowardice. There is no 'slap fight;' this isn't a case of two equally bad actors sniping at each other. This is a case of a viciously repugnant troll attacking someone you claim to respect, and you being too… weak? afraid? blinded by a shared allegiance to the same ultra-fascist ideology?… to call it out as such.
Oh, and let's stop calling him a libertarian, k? Nobody who believes the state should criminalize homosexuality is a libertarian.
@Naught – yeah, I don't agree with that RW article either. So? The quotes from Vox Day in his article all link back to his blog; he demonstrably wrote them. He wrote, for example, that women give up the right not to consent to sex when they get married, that we should 'force gay people back in the closet,' bragged about doxxing someone who left bad reviews of his books, so on. He's a scumbag and Clark's admiration for him is pretty inexplicable from my point of view.
Mike A's comment about moral cowardice is the height of accuracy.
Clark should be ashamed.
Had a couple of comments disappear into moderation; is there a particular rule for this thread? I thought they were relevant and civil. Your living room and all, just don't know where or what the line is.
(edit–maybe just still in the queue. nevermind.)
@Naught
Again you're not responding to anything I wrote. I haven't written anything about any "ingroup of rationalists". I have presented the views of this guy and I explained why I'm not ignorant or dishonest for calling his views stupid, hateful and objectively anti-scientific. If you're going to respond to me then please read what I write.
Yeah, I just browsed this guys writing on vaccines, biological race, and high-energy cosmology (among other things), and it was all characterized by extreme scientific ignorance and a weirdly high opinion of his own qualifications. He's objectively anti-scientific on, like, nine different topics.
Richard
May 23, 2015 at 6:43 pm
Ok, I went over to Vox Popov, too. Glad I wore my rubber waders. Then I checked out Ad Majorem Gloriam err I mean Vox Day (I don't know why I keep getting his name wrong) at Amazon. He's published by Castalia House in Finland (snort, snicker). I would rather that the Finns had kept the tree (just one tree, a small one) that was sacrificed for his garbage. I say this as someone who takes second place to no one in the volume of Sci-Fi and Fantasy I've read. It's Ken's business what dog droppings he kicks off the curb, but this guy's not worth getting anybody's shoes dirty.
@Naught
It's worth pointing out that, despite the name, RationalWiki was very little to do with the group that generally refers to themselves as "Rationalists."
People keep using "scientific" and "rational" justification in an inappropriate way. Science and rationality are tools that have no moral judgment. If hacking off vaccinated arms works then in that limited sense it can be seen as scientific and rational. But first what you count as "working" is a personal moral choice not a scientific or rational choice. And second if you live in a society where hacking off arms is a viable strategy then you are already lost.
A hammer is a tool. It cannot differentiate between driving a nail into a board and driving a nail into the hand of Jesus. Science and rationality are tools in the same sense.
I've never read Vox Day before this brouhaha. Don't plan to read him again. Christ what an insecure little shit. One of the things I've learned in life is that those who pound their chest and boast about what a badass they are and the havoc they'll dispense if you cross them, aren't and effectively can't. They're laughable. I have no idea what personal demon haunts him, but he's definitely overcompensating for some perceived inadequacy. What a silly little shit.
Clark, count me in the list that found this a thoughtful attempt to explore your own feelings and perspective on the specific and the general question.
Other people have replied to a lot of what I wanted to reply to in the comments, so I'll stop there.
Beale is a small, weak, insecure man, consumed by bitterness and jealousy of John Scalzi to the point of obsession. Theodore wants punish the world for his own inferiority. Thus the alleged "MMA" fighting (sure), the posing with flaming swords (paging Dr. Freud) and the internet thuggery.
So he's not only one of those guys who brags about how tough he is on the Internet, but he's also the type who brags on the Internet about how he fights people?
Where can I subscribe to his newsletter?!
I guess the blockquote function doesn't work. The first paragraph of my previous comment was a quote from someone else. I wouldn't want "Vox Day" to think it was my own comment, because he might then heap terrible Internet abuse on me. I am too delicate a flower to take on someone with his self-described prowess at Internet onslaughts.
Anyone have an RSS set up for Ken's posts without Clark's? For a while I resisted jumping on that bandwagon in the name of not shutting out contrary opinions, but I've realized that no, my dislike of him isn't just because I disagree with his politics, it's because he's pompous, verbose, and vastly overestimates his own intelligence and expertise in that uniquely anarcho-libertarian-dude way. His long and historically illiterate post trying to tie the civil war to ancient British ethnology should have been the last straw (seriously, don't spent 20k words pontificating on a subject you have zero knowledge about), but nope, this is. If you tell your friend you'll stand by them when the putrid trolls come for them, and then you not only don't follow through but don't even have the guts to ADMIT it, you're not worthy of my time or respect.
I'll get my daily dose of dissenting views from someone more interesting, aware of the limitations of their own expertise, and less of a moral coward.
@Vorkon
Thanks, that's good to know. I'd always thought they were a sort of competing group to the LW types, based around the "atheism+" and "skeptchick" or whatever cliques. I knew they took their editors from people banned by wikipedia for being really creepy about those topics, and saw their links everywhere in those… communities, but hadn't checked names.
"You dare easier be friends with me than fight with mine enemy. […]
Oh, […] that I
had any friend would be a man for my sake! But
manhood is melted into courtesies, valour into
compliment, and men are only turned into tongue, and
trim ones too: he is now as valiant as Hercules
that only tells a lie and swears it."
@Bill
What an appropriate source to quote from. :D
If this is what currently counts as a slap flight on the internet, then maybe I need to unpug my wifi.
@jacob took Clark to task for not trashing Vox enough. I don't know what jacob read, but what I read, despite having some kind words in it, amounted to a thorough damnation of Vox. Of course, as soon as I learned Vox didn't like Ken, I was predisposed to believe the worst of him.
Actually, I do think that. Frequently. And his habit of claiming he can't be argued with because his IQ is higher than everyone else's demonstrates his fundamental intellectual dishonesty. He is the poster-child for the Dunning-Krueger effect.
Dear Clark,
Leaving aside the politics of personality you've discussed at some length, would you please refrain from calling a medical illness "a personal weakness?" If someone wants to criticize people with depression, that serves to diminish the criticizer. Do people with cancer disclose "a personal weakness" when they post about cancer?
I'll leave Vox Day's hateful comments about people with brain disorders ("the mentally ill") who don't belong, in his view, on the internet, for someone with a greater interest in banging heads against the wall of ignorance and spite.
So if I see this post as concern troll advocacy of a speech code, I should refer to it is as a masterpiece of performance tone artistry exploring a more rigid aesthetic expression..
..to be more virtuous and such?
I have been reading Vox Day for a while, and he is indeed cruel and he has some very questionable beliefs. He's a provocateur, and he's out there on the fringes with some of his notions. I also think he's interesting and smart, and someone who merits watching, for a variety of reasons. I can totally understand why people dislike him, though I disagree with the dismissals of him as merely a troll, or insecure, and I second what several others have said that his infamous quotes about acid in faces and Malala Yousafzai are taken out of context to make it appear that he supported those actions.
I think much the same of Clark. He's infuriating, I disagree with much of what he says, but I think he's worth reading nonetheless. I think he's a smart and principled man with interesting (but sometimes a bit loony) views. I think the people who keep griping about him and asking for Popehat to offer a way to filter him out should quit complaining and just skip his posts if they are so vexing.
Now, all that being said…
Clark. Man up.
You failed in a big way. You have not held your ground. You have not stood on your principles. When forced to put up or shut up, you did a waffling, equivocating retreat. Not that I think you should care what I think of you, but you blew away a huge chunk of my respect for you.
You made a manly chest-beating promise to "rain hell-fire" on Vox if he mocked Ken for his post, obviously in the belief that you'd never have to back that up. Yet anyone who has been reading Vox should have known that yes, VD monitors his critics and will go for the jugular if they post anything on social media that affords an opportunity for mockery.
Regardless of whether or not it was foolishness on your part not to see this coming, the fact is that you made a promise to a friend that you never thought you'd have to keep, and now you're trying to justify why you're not keeping it. I mean, I don't think you should "rain hell-fire" on Vox (how exactly would you do that, anyway? Bombard him with namecalling tweets? Write long polemics here about what a horrible person he is?), but you shouldn't have promised something you couldn't deliver, and since you failed, you should just admit that. You failed. Your feet were clay. You knew that if you did post something "hell-firey," Vox would stop treating you with civility and add you to his targets list.
Go ahead and wave a finger at Ken and Vox both for being naughty children you wish would play nicer, but I think Ken is being amazingly gracious to a friend who loudly and publicly promised to have his back and then didn't.
I've felt many of the same things about the Hugos, since the 1980s in fact (_Downbelow Station_ winning is when I first started noticing that the awards weren't as accurately reflecting my tastes as they had been previously). But unlike the non-housebroken canines, I don't see any reason to think there's any conspiracy involved, or anything "wrong".
It's actually kind of funny. I know what's happening — what's happening is that the almighty market is functioning. People aren't agreeing with my taste in SF enough for my favorites to be winning reliably (though the most important ones do — Vinge's _A Fire Upon the Deep_, for example).
The accusations of secret deals, dishonest vote counting, and widespread impropriety are simply nonsense. I'm too deeply into the SF community to not know about them if they were happening. Pure nonsense, made-up nonsense. Badly-written made-up nonsense. Not credible to anybody who knows how things actually work.
I'm surprised nobody's mentioned this yet. Vox wrote;
This is exactly the kind of thing Ken so often is battling here. Vox Day is proudly proclaiming himself to be a censorious asshat; the kind of person who can dish it out, but who actually can't take it; the kind of person who, by his own words (if he in fact backs them up and isn't just a bunch of puff), might cause Ken to light the Popehat signal. And Clark says he admires this person? I've often disagreed with Clark, and known that he and Ken are not in any way intellectual clones, but I'd never anticipated that any Popehatter would align themselves
with the censorius asshats.
No. His name is Theodore Beale.
Correct. He's calling himself "Voice of God".
Proof that someone smart in one area can be a complete idiot in another.
If you take a man and drop him at a random location on the Earth, he will be dead within an hour (give or take how long he can tread water, and how cold it is). If you drop him at a random point in the galaxy it's certain to a very large number of decimal places he will be dead in 30 seconds.
The Universe is not made for us, not by any measure. We're astoundingly lucky to have had this tiny little corner to evolve into at all.
Here's my question: Ken apparently sought the input of other Popehat contributors prior to posting his post on depression. This strikes me as an eminently reasonable thing for a group blog to do, and as almost required by respect for the other contributors, since a far out post has the potential to dilute the brand, although in this instance Ken himself is by far the biggest contributor to the Popehat brand and its image. What I wonder is whether Clark had a similar respect for his fellow contributors prior to posting this post, by seeking their input as Ken did. Specifically, I wonder whether he put them – including Ken – on notice that he was going to allude to and paraphrase the "concerns" Ken expressed to his fellow contributors prior to posting his post on depression. Clark quotes his own response to those concerns, but did not quote Ken's own expression of those concerns. This makes me wonder whether (1) what Ken wrote to his fellow contributors was meant for public consumption and (2) whether Clark accurately paraphrased what Ken wrote to his fellow contributors.
Also worth noting that if we couldn't survive here, there wouldn't be anybody to observe that fact. In all scenarios in which someone is evaluating the likelihood of the universe allowing life to exist, the universe does in fact allow life to exist.
To put it more formally, people who like the Anthropic principle are failing to update their estimate of the chance of the universe being life-friendly on the prior probability of their own existence.
"alauda
May 23, 2015 at 4:10 pm
To be honest, though, his wring is inept and Psykosonik is bland."
Violating the restraining order again, Clamps?
LOL.
The first mistake is to take him seriously. The second mistake is to debate with him. It is true that you will never win an argument or a debate with an idiot – and Vox hasn't been beaten yet!
He isn't stupid but he isn't a genius as he claims either. As an educated man myself I once tried to explain to him basic immunology with dismal results. When it became clear I was more informed (and more intelligent) than he and his fan boys I was promptly banned. I laughed and moved on.
I still read him though – he does have some redeeming qualities: his antics with the idiotic SJW crowd make for high comedy. Like his enemies he is totally impervious to common sense, humour, or wit. I am interested in seeing what he does next, really. Without the clown fight with the social justice warriors…he's pretty boring.
I still read him; he is indeed a performance artist and his antics make first rate comedy.
This VD dude sure likes to talk tough on the internet.
LOL, he sure sounds like a thin skinned sort though. And he thinks it's impressive that he's a censorious thug. I can see why he doesn't like Ken White.
Compare and contrast. Vox Day in this thread:
Vox Day becoming completely incensed at my suggestion that he reacts with unbalanced rage to criticism:
Clark, you're a friend, and I love you, but you have a blind spot here. This is not a person to be taken seriously. Being willing to say controversial things at length is not the same as being a serious person.
Clark, my name is Edward J. Cunningham, I live in Derwood, MD and I have an very high opinion of you. Thanks to the internet and places like Cop Block, and Maggie McNeill's blog "The Honest Courtesan" I have become more and more aware of the issue of police brutality and their abuse of the "civilians" whom they are supposed to protect. This ought to be a right-wrong issue, not a left-right issue, but too many people who identify as conservatives think the cops are always and they can watch a video of man murdering somebody else in cold blood and immediately think that that person was justified solely because he is wearing a police uniform. (In fairness, there are also people on the left who also have a blind spot on this issue, and one of the first politicians who successfully campaigned on a "law and order" platform was California governor Jerry Brown.)
But for the moment, that doesn't matter right now.
Because I can always point to Clark's positions as proof that opposition to the police state shouldn't be a left-right issue, I'm willing to listen to his opinions on other subjects that I might normally tune out because I tend to be liberal. One of those issues is the Hugo Awards controversy, and it was partly through Clark's twitter posts that I became aware of this. To me, it seems that the "Sad Puppies" side is less interested in the ideological purity of the writers they support than the other side. If, thanks to Sad Puppies the base of science fiction fans who vote for the Hugo Awards is expanded so that the award truly becomes a fan-based award rather than a decision by an elite group of snobs, future science fiction fans will owe a great debt to Larry Correia, Theodore "Vox Day" Beale, and supporters like Clark.
But that doesn't matter right now.
On this page, a number of quotes from Vox Day have been posted as proof of what a bad, evil man he is, and that anybody who agrees with him on ANYTHING should be ashamed of themselves. Speaking for myself, I will withhold judgement on those quotes until I see them in context. It may well be that when I read them in context I will say, "On these particular issues, Vox Day is not only wrong but a major piece of shit—-but that doesn't mean that he isn't also wrong about the Hugo Awards."
Not even that matters right now.
What does matter is that when Clark's friend Ken "Popehat" White asked Clark if he should go public about the time he spent in a mental health facility, Clark promised that he would rain "hell-fire" on Vox if Vox Day were to personally attack Popehat for that blog entry. Although what I read here is very heartfelt, it also falls considerably short of "hell-fire." In my opinion, somebody who would attack a man for posting something like Popehat's "Glad To Be Here" post is worthy of my scorn, regardless of his other political opinions. Fortunately, while Popehat's mitre may be made of tinfoil, his skin is considerably thick and he is more than able to go toe to toe with Vox Day in the commentary of Vox's blog. Similarly, Vox could care less of my opinion of him, as he told me earlier today.
Actually, I'm not—and I favorited that reply. But I do feel the need to call him out, and I'm calling you out as well. If your friend asks you for your support, you back them up. It might well be the case that as in notable Orson Welles films like The Third Man or Touch of Evil, it might be more moral NOT to back your friends, but I don't think anybody has mistaken Popehat for Harry Lime and he'll have to gain a lot of weight to become Hank Quinlan. That's why I'm disappointed in you, Clark, but I'm still following your twitter feed and reading your posts. If this expression of disappointment leaves much to be desired from your harsher critics, it's probably because I still admire you and I understand your dilemma.
But also…I never made the same promise that you did.
To be clear, the reason I'm posting collections of horrifically stupid things Teddy has written isn't to prove that he's so terrible all his opinions are by definition wrong- that's illogical, obviously. It's in response to Clark's assertion that anyone who thinks he's an idiot is dishonest or ignorant.
Oh, and we can leave aside the acid or Malala comments (not that his excuses are valid, but for the purpose of the argument we can pick other quotes), but there's no extenuating context for the fact that he supports legalizing rape.
"First, there is no such thing as marital rape. Once consent is formally given in public ceremony, it cannot be revoked… If a woman believes in the concept of marital rape, absolutely do not marry her!"
Is Vox egotistical? Of course. Narcissistic? Admittedly so. Abrasive. Cringingly so. Despite that, I enjoy reading his blog for two reasons.
1. He stimulates the thorough examination of ones positions. Whether I agree or not is irrelevant. What matters is I am forced to think, examine my beliefs, and fight for them. The commenters there are some of the smartest people online, and can be absolutely ruthless if you don’t bring your A game. The debates are often epic and bloody. Many retreat with their tails between their legs.
2. He understands the culture war we are engaged in and is willing to draw a line in the sand and fight. The shrieks from the left are a testament to his effectiveness. I realize this is mostly a lefty blog (and I enjoy reading it nonetheless), but, if like me, you believe that western civilization is being dismantled before your eyes, you'd be well served to consider him an ally in the fight. No enemies to the right, as the saying goes.
Gunnar wrote:
"My attack on Vox Day's anti-scientific nonsense is from the perspective of a biologist btw. I've seen a lot of anti-scientific nonsense over the years and I'm somewhat familiar with Vox Day's creationist arguments"
Biologist? Color me unimpressed. These intellectual halfwits are ferocious enforcers of *liberal creationism*. If that means excommunicating James Watson, the discoverer of DNA and greatest living biologist, no problem. Just so long as reality doesn't impinge on the fake biological narrative that aligns with political correctness.
Here's a liberal explaining liberal creationism, which is to my mind a much worse problem than the conservative version.
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_nature/features/2007/created_equal/liberalcreationism.html
Vox: I don't know Ken, I don't care about Ken, I don't read, follow, or think about Ken.
And, as usual, Vox, you demonstrate this with thousands of words of argument and dozens of tweets.
Well, good to see Popehat's descended into a weird cross between Much Ado About Nothing and Mean Girls over the last year.
Ken, you started beating on wankers for fun, and now you're in a sticky situation. Have fun with it!
Is there a Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest for pornography? If so, I nominate this sentence.
Ken, Clark and Vox all make me think.
I'd much rather see Vox and Kimberlin at odds with each other than Vox and Ken. Think of the popcorn sales!
Jesus Christ. If I believed that about the left, where I tend to fall, I'd be making my peace with Stalin and Mao- are you equally comfortable with Pinochet, Hitler, the Taliban, and so on? That's a terrifying way of looking at the world.
I know they certainly have a habit of saying that, but what evidence is there actually for that position? Every time they've engaged with people who are actually educated about anything they've appeared enormously stupid- on topics as diverse as biological anthropology, high-energy physics, cosmology, epidemiology, and geology.
I also find that the more time people spend talking about how high their IQs are, the less likely they are to actually be geniuses.
How is someone saying 'raping your wife should be allowed' or 'we should imprison homosexuals' stimulating or thought-provoking? He doesn't make intelligent arguments for controversial positions, he just makes idiotic and bigoted statements and then calls anyone who points out his mistakes names.
If that's your metric, we're back to Godwinning.
Oh, Christ. Which type are you- the blacks are getting too uppity, the womenfolk are out of the kitchen, or the homosexuals are converting your children?
Wow, a racist, sexist, moron like Vox doesn't like people. Film at 11.
RE: Elijah Rhodes
You think this is a "lefty blog"? Then you haven't been reading this blog long enough to use any kind of facts to form that opinion.
As for Ken:
TO fight aloud is very brave,
But gallanter, I know,
Who charge within the bosom,
The cavalry of woe.
Who win, and nations do not see,
Who fall, and none observe,
Whose dying eyes no country
Regards with patriot love.
We trust, in plumed procession,
For such the angels go,
Rank after rank, with even feet
And uniforms of snow.
As for Clark,
Your courage here shines twice as brightly. Hold fast to truth.
"We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you."
This is typical "both sides do it" apologist bullshit. You promise your friend that if a particular troll attacks him, you will go to bat for him, and then when it actually happens, your attitude is "oh dear, I'm just so disappointed in him! If only they weren't both engaged in this silly slap fight!".
Some "friend"! Where's the righteous anger you promised?
Good post, Clark.
Vox Day is a play on words. Another Latin word for God is Theo (theology, theocracy). His name means Voice of Theo. As in Theodore.
As for Ken vs Vox, Ken vs Roosh, Ken vs gamergate… I admire Ken and his tenacity. Even when I disagree with him, his posts make great points. On Twitter, however, brevity makes him an asshole. This leads me to believe that, as Clark said, Ken is a big boy who can take care of himself and he knows that when he picks fights with other assholes, they will go for blood.
And all these whiny little turds in the comment section saying Clark betrayed the tribe, or that he is "aligning himself" with anything Vox said simply because he won't attack is fundamentally ignorant. Are Ken and Patrick anarchists? No? But they don't attack Clark! They must want to burn the system to the ground as well! Clark has stated his desire to see the entire thing burn to the ground, so Ken and Patrick must agree with him wholeheartedly, right?
THERE CAN BE NO DISAGREEMENT.
From Vox's site:
Do "stable and self-confident" people find they really need to go around telling people how "stable and self-confident" they are? And don't forget "strong"……really "strong" people tell you they're "strong"…all the time, right? Oh, and the "notoriously ruthless"…..
@ghost
What you just wrote is a really good reason to NOT tell your friend "Hey, if this particular guy attacks you for this, I'll 'rain hellfire' down upon him" (presumably meaning verbally denouncing him in the strongest possible way, not literally committing arson)
He made that promise, and apparently all he meant by it was a rhetorical device to mean "I highly doubt he'll attack you". Sort of like saying "I bet you a million billion dollars he won't attack you".
That's a pretty lazy, cavalier way to back up your "friend"
It's kind of hilarious that the comment section of this article fulfills the premise of the title of the article.
I have the perfect response to this: Don't know who or what a Vox is, nor do I care that I don't.
My own impression of Vox is that he is such an extreme example of attention seeking behavior that I am compelled to believe that he pleasures himself while watching the hit counter on his blog.
Ignoring him is the best revenge.
@Charlie Martin
Yes, Vox has spent a lot of words showing how he neither cares, reads, follows, or thinks about Ken. He is very right that he doesn't know Ken.
@Clark
Your admiration of Vox is so very misplaced.
Can you spot the issues in what Vox wrote about himself?
I have heard of this Vox Day guy, I even have a piece of short fiction by him on the Kindle (not very good, BTW). I have heard he is an asshole, but don't have a great deal of confidence in many of the people saying that, so I was reserving judgment. But it's sort of like the Train Job episode from Firefly where Niska explains the difference between reputation and knowing, now I "know" that Teddy is just a whiny little asshole.
And Clark, I agree with the folks above who say you need to man up. I have a lot of respect for your willingness to express unpopular thoughts (although often don't agree with them), but you drew a line in the sand and this guy stepped right across it and spat on your friend.
I think it's amazing how many people can say –apparently without any sense of irony– How DARE that stupid, ignorant, racist, sexist, homophobic white supremacist say mean things about people on the internet! Anyone who can say something along those lines without recognizing their own hypocrisy is probably not ready to listen to reason. But for those others of you who I know do listen to reason. I'd like to mention the following extenuating circumstances:
1. Vox Day doesn't attack innocent people. Several commuters have implied that he trolls the internet looking for women, blacks and gays to attack. This is a lie. When Vox Day attacks someone, you can be pretty sure that person has previously attacked Vox Day or someone else in a vicious way.
2. The same can't be said for Vox Day's opponents. The main internet activity of the SJWs is looking for innocent people to attack and slander, often with an explicit attempt to get them fired or ruin their business. This is part of an organized effort to intimidate people into agreeing with (or at least being afraid to disagree with) their ideals of anti-white racism, anti-male sexism, and anti-Christian religious bigotry.
3. Vox Day has been one of the most character-assassinated people on the internet. You can't read about him on the internet without some commenter helpfully pointing out what a horrible person he is and a white supremacist also (this is worse than "racist" which most non-leftists now recognize as a reflexive insult word like "asshole" that doesn't have a literal meaning). That kind of thing can make someone testy.
4. He has also explicitly said that he is using their own tactics against them. If there were no SJW's out trying to destroy careers over political ideology, there would be no Vox Day.
I don't approve of some of Vox Day's tactics, and I agree with Clark's take on things. But Vox Day is not the worst person on the internet. He's not even the worst person on this comment thread.
One of his responses to criticism was "go after my friends and family to hurt me."
@Cugel
What did my friend do that was so horrible?
For that matter, what did N.K. Jemisin do?
@Mike A.
I don't actually know the context of any of those quotes other than the first, but it is easy to demonstrate that all of them can be made in contexts were they are not offensive. An impartial person who was not just looking for an excuse to hate someone would assume these contexts. Here you go:
"It is absurd to imagine that there is absolutely no link between race and intelligence"
As long as you believe there is any genetic component to intelligence at all, then this is just an obvious corollary. All genetic traits that vary vary over population. And races are populations. Ergo. This is only offensive if you are one of those bigots who think that intelligence is a measure of human worth. To Vox Day, this is no more offensive than saying that there is a link between race and the strength of the quadriceps. This quote is the basis for saying that Vox is a white supremecist. But he thinks that Europeans are in the middle of the pack on intelligence, How does that come out to white supremacist?
"Ironically, in light of the strong correlation between female education and demographic decline, a purely empirical perspective on Malala Yousafzai, the poster girl for global female education, may indicate that the Taliban's attempt to silence her was perfectly rational and scientifically justifiable"
I can see two obvious contexts for this that do support the Taliban. One is that he is trying to explain the Taliban's reasoning in order to analyze how to defeat them (it is important not to assume your enemy is being irrational just because they do things that seem irrational to you, given your premises). The other context would be in an argument against the use of bare science and rationality for making decisions, without bringing in values and morality.
“a few acid-burned faces is a small price to pay for lasting marriages, stable families, legitimate children, low levels of debt, strong currencies, affordable housing, homogenous populations, low levels of crime, and demographic stability"
Same two contexts as for the previous one.
"First, there is no such thing as marital rape. Once consent is formally given in public ceremony, it cannot be revoked… If a woman believes in the concept of marital rape, absolutely do not marry her!"
Could be continued with "on the other hand, there is such a thing as attacking your spouse, so if you did rape your wife you could be guilty of assault, battery, kidnapping, or something." It is not offensive merely to suggest that man and wife have an obligation to each other to have sex. If you married a woman only to find out that she never intended to have sex with you, anyone would recognize that she had committed some sort of fraud against you.
"I noticed that the number of fake reviews of my books on Amazon declined considerably after I tracked down the woman from Minnesota and posted her address on this blog"
So someone was anonymously, and maliciously trying to destroy Vox's career and he exposed her and made her feel that she was as vulnerable as he was. Sorry, I'm not offended.
"Homosexuality is a birth defect from every relevant secular, material, and sociological perspective"
There are deaf people and little people who also take offense if anyone describes them as having a defect or abnormality. But the fact that they take offense because they have a personal investment does not make the statement inherently offensive. It is possible to view homosexuality as an abnormality without hating homosexuals or wanting anything bad for them at all, just as it is possible to view dwarfism as an abnormality without hating little people or wanting anything bad for them.
Except the review wasn't "fake," it was just negative.
Could be continued with "on the other hand, there is such a thing as attacking your spouse, so if you did rape your wife you could be guilty of assault, battery, kidnapping, or something." It is not offensive merely to suggest that man and wife have an obligation to each other to have sex. If you married a woman only to find out that she never intended to have sex with you, anyone would recognize that she had committed some sort of fraud against you.
But he didn't say those things.
@Cugel — Two quick questions, if I may. Are we to always equate an "abnormality" with a "defect?" And secondly, what do you think it means to have a defect from a "sociological perspective?" Are blind and deaf people defective from such a perspective? Feel free to answer or not!
AKA quoting him verbatim.
The defense of Vox Day by Cugel is truly bizarre. Instead of showing the actual context he claims is missing from those quotes he just makes up his own context, which turns out to be different from the context in the articles by Vox Day. I read those quotes in context and it was just as bad, if not worse "in context". If you want to prove the quotes are better in context you should show the actual context that makes them better. Not make up your own theories about what the context might be.
And claiming that someone is "maliciously trying to destroy Vox's career" because they write negative reviews of his works is just flat out retarded. But it goes well with Vox Day's actual beliefs that artists have a right to not be criticized http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2015/04/25/vox-day-to-david-pakman-gamergate-is-about-the-right-of-gamers-and-game-developers-to-be-immune-from-criticism/
Mike A wrote in response to “you believe that western civilization is being dismantled before your eyes":
"Oh, Christ. Which type are you- the blacks are getting too uppity, the womenfolk are out of the kitchen, or the homosexuals are converting your children?"
I respond:
Another social justice warrior who inadvertently reveals he does not actually know any blacks
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/417899/inconvenient-truth-about-ghetto-communities-social-breakdown-thomas-sowell
And perhaps not very many women either?
http://www.nber.org/papers/w14969
Good thing we have been focusing all of our efforts gay rights in the last 20 years since they are 25% of the population.
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-05-22/americans-vastly-overestimate-size-of-lgbt-population
"An impartial person who was not just looking for an excuse to hate someone would assume these contexts."
An impartial person would hear "marital rape is fine" and assume the context made it an innocent statement? Not sure I want to meet the people you consider impartial.
"And races are populations."
No, they're not. This is a case of scientific illiteracy as much as racism; 'race' has no scientific meaning. Ask your friendly local biologist.
"To Vox Day, this is no more offensive than saying that there is a link between race and the strength of the quadriceps."
Also moronic, scientifically illiterate and racist.
"Same two contexts as for the previous one."
Yeah, arguing that violence against women leads to stable, happy, prosperous societies is misogynistic. Is this really that hard to figure out?
"her feel that she was as vulnerable as he was."
Leaving bad reviews for someone's book makes them as vulnerable as doxxing and death threats? K buddy.
"There are deaf people and little people who also take offense if anyone describes them as having a defect or abnormality."
1) Being disabled isn't the same thing as being gay
2) Most disabled people will, yes, be offended if you call them defective
"It is possible to view homosexuality as an abnormality without hating homosexuals or wanting anything bad for them at all,"
Fortunately Teddy took care of that possibility when he said he wanted to re-criminalize homosexuality.
Your desperation to defend homophobia, racism, and misogyny is really just sad, at this point.
Along with all the racism, homophobia, misogyny, and general shittiness of Beale, he's not an MMA fighter. There's no record of him EVER competing in professional or amateur mixed martial arts. Even if he had, the fact that he's not listed on Sherdog or Tapology indicates that what experience he had was at such a low level it might as well have been backyard wrestling.
He's no more an "MMA Fighter" than Jean Claude van Damme is a Kumite champion.
It would be damn fun to watch all 115 pounds of Joanna Jedrzejczyk hit him so hard he shit out his own teeth, though.
@Dan- what does any of that have to do with what I'm asking? You seem to think Western Civilization (which is itself a term in desperate need of definition) is declining, and I'm wondering whether it's women's rights, gay rights, or the general lessening in societal racism that leads you to that conclusion. What possible relevant does the % of the population that's gay have to do with my question?
And how does not being down with, say, marital rape make me a 'social justice warrior,' exactly?
@Cugel
Here is what Mike A is talking about with Vox day wanting to criminalize homosexuality: "You have two choices, Americans. Either criminalize their behavior and force them back into the closet or be run out of town yourself. There is no middle ground. Other nations have reached this conclusion; I expect it is only a matter of time before Americans do too. We tried toleration. Despite our honest efforts, it has failed, and failed abysmally."
Full context here since you undoubtedly will try to attempt I'm taking it "out of context" and he's really trying to help gay people or something: http://voxday.blogspot.no/2014/04/a-tale-of-two-trends.html
Like I said in an earlier post. What you're doing is making up your own contexts instead of defending the actual contexts of the statements. You're making up arguments for Vox Day that he never made while accusing other people of misrepresenting him. It's pretty ironic.
Vox Day is a play on words. Another Latin word for God is Theo (theology, theocracy). His name means Voice of Theo. As in Theodore.
Theodore is from the Greek Theodoros, Gift of God. Anglo-Latinicized it would be Doris Day. Vox is also of the feminine gender in Latin, BTW.
You're Norwegian?
If you want to boil your blood, look up what Vox has to say about Anders Behring Breivik.
I know what Vox Day said about Breivik. Obviously I think he's 100% wrong, but what do I know. Apparently I'm either being dishonest or ignorant when I say that. You have to think it's reasonable to claim that Breivik's victims were "political enemies working towards the destruction of Breivik's nation" and that they "weren't innocent little kids" now to not be considered dishonest and/or ignorant by Clark who pretty much outed himself as a fascist with this post sadly.
@Gunnar
You are right; I was not clear enough what my point was. My point was not to defend Vox in that comment but to point out that Mike A could not expect reasonable people to take his word on Vox Day based on a few out-of-context quotes. As to the particular one you take issue with, I should have written:
"IF someone was malciously …."
From the quote itself, Vox apparently believed that she was leading a campaign to post false reviews of his books for malicious reasons. If he was right, then she deserved to be exposed.
I also acknowledge that my context suggestion on the one about gays is a bit weak. It's hard not to see that as a slam against gays. But I can see someone writing that and not intending it as a slam against gays.
"half-savage" is really all I have to say about that.
(That's not entirely true, there's also the puerile, childish insults that come out every time he indulges his obsession with Scalzi. But the description of Vox as an immensely clever wit whenever he decides to insult someone is way, way off.)
"….(that ignorant fool) Clark who pretty much outed himself as a fascist with this post sadly."
Damn. The statist twits really ARE a laughably stereotypical primer on Rabbit Warren 101 once they get going. "Cast out the unbeliever! Shun the Badthinker!"
Vox believes a lot of things. That doesn't make them true.
@Mike A
I'm familiar with the "race is not a scientific category" movement. The movement isn't universal among biologists and even if you don't view race as a scientific category you have to admit that a man from England and a man from Germany are likely to have a lot more genetic material in common than either does with a man from Japan, and the man from Japan is likely to have a lot more genetic material in common with a man from China. Calling this "scientific illiteracy" is just you doing what Vox Day does: trying to bully your opponent into submission. You may consider me non-bullied.
Maybe you can explain how a value judgement can be moronic and scientifically illiterate. Is it because morons are less likely to be bigoted against people with low intelligence? And you will have to direct me to the scientific literature on what makes one human being more intrinsically worthy than another. I confess that I am not familiar with it. As to racism, I begin to suspect that you don't know what the word means. A racist is someone who believes that there are moral or worthiness differences between people based on their race. For example, a Nazi believes that the Germanic peoples are a higher order of being than other humans and SJWs believe that whites are a lower order of being than other humans. Find me a quote where Vox defends a belief like that.
I didn't see the word "happy" in his quotes. You wouldn't misquote him on purpose just to make him look bad, would you? As to your larger point: no, arguing that violence against women leads to stable, prosperous societies is not inherently misogynistic (assuming that is actually what Vox was doing, I can't tell that from the quote). It is just a theory. Now advocating violence against women on the basis of that theory would be misogynistic. But the quote you provided does not contain any such advocacy. I don't know what his point was, and until you provide that, you haven't proven misogyny.
As to the gay quote, I'm going to drop my defense and give you that one. I shouldn't have tried to defend it in the first place. Although it is possible with a lot of imagination to come up with a context in which that one was not intended to be offensive, it is far more plausible that it was.
I recognize that turn of phrase. It is the classic excuse of the born thug.
@Cugel,
I am likely to have a lot more genetic material in common with my brother than with you. That does not imply that we are different races. As a matter of fact humans are odd among animals in that our genetic diversity is very low compared to them.
To answer the question "Does race exist?" you have to define what you mean by race. What baggage do you want the definition to carry? You can always define it in such a way that it clearly exists but when you do so is that definition really useful for anything?
The claim that race doesn't exist is simply the claim that any definition of race has no scientific utility. The genetic differences are so trivial and ephemeral that race has no use. There isn't even a unique way to divide the population into some set of races. The racial landscape is more like a continuous landscape than divided islands. Cultural differences are orders of magnitude more important than genetic differences and is a large part of what colors peoples attitude about race.
In order to claim that race exists you have to decide what baggage you want the claim to carry. Otherwise you aren't even making a coherent claim. After you decide on the baggage others will decide if that baggage is worth carrying. If so they can adopt your definition of race.
After that you can argue that Pluto really is a planet.
Other than rabid puppies, a useful link to decent SF, most of my encounters with Mr. Day are rants by SJW types. As best I can determine he, like Ann Coulter, believe it is fair for themselves to deploy the same rhetoric and ploys as the Progressives that attack them.
This is called fair. Their critics are insensed that they employ the same 'ends justify the means' that is the hallmark of Progressive thinking. I do not approve, and consider that the end never justifies the means; however, as Mr. Day wants to leave me alone instead of demanding my participation/wealth for something I don't care about, I tend to like that attitude better than that of the other side.
It's not a movement, it's a scientific fact, and yeah, it pretty much is, at least in the same sense accepting the theory of relativity is universal among physicists. I get that this fact may upend your worldview, but unfortunately nobody cares.
Actually, no, that's not true. There's more intra-group genetic diversity than inter-group difference, which means there's actually every chance a German and Japanese person have more alleles in common than two Germans. Furthermore, even if that wasn't true, human genetic variation is continuous, not discrete, so any attempt to divide people into 'races' would be inherently arbitrary and unscientific. You're about 20 years behind the times, scientifically speaking: read this and get back to me, please.
You simply do not know what you're talking about. Here, this may help.
No, it's me pointing out that you have no idea what you're talking about. You believe race exists because you want to, much like Teddy believes violence against women leads to more prosperous societies because he wants to, whereas everyone who actually bothered to educate themselves and then become experts in relevant fields believes race doesn't have a scientific basis because they did studies on population genetics. In other words, you're a poster child for motivated cognition in the face of overwhelming evidence.
Saying race is correlated to physical attributes isn't a value judgement, it's an empirical truth-claim, and a false one. And one correlated strongly with racist beliefs. Clear enough?
I confess I have no idea who these 'SJWs' are you keep going on about. I certainly don't know anyone who has the beliefs you attribute to them.
Well, he explicitly said that violence against women was a 'small price to pay' for al the multitudinous benefits that come along with it. Your desperation to defend misogyny on the most tenuous grounds is a pretty strong indictment of your character, incidentally.
And now we have some charming linguistic prescriptivism. 'Racism' is a concept with multiple definitions, of which yours is one, but by no means the only. It's really not hard to become more educated if you give it an honest try, I promise.
Well, he argued it's OK to force your wife to have sex with you even if she doesn't want to, because rape doesn't count if you're married first. Yeah, comfortable with my initial assessment.
I get that it's super important to you, emotionally, to be able to say white people are smarter than black people, and rape isn't that bad, and we'd all be better off if women weren't education, without being called a sexist or racist, but my question is… why? I mean, at this point, just embrace those labels. They accurately define your beliefs, and your attempts to argue otherwise are appearing increasingly desperate.
@Patterico
I could have predicted how you would respond to Vox Day after the way you went after Ann Coulter some time back. On the one hand, I respect your commitment to policing your own side in an effort to maintain some level of civility. On the other hand, I think the Social Justice Bullies are a genuine and immediate threat to civil society, gradually destroying the freedom of speech by making people afraid to speak. They have already taken over most of the popular entertainment industry which so heavily influences low information voters. They have to be stopped and Vox Day has been involved in two major successes against them: Gamer Gate and the Hugos.
By contrast, I don't think your gentleman's tactics have ever had any effect on them. Sad but true (I mean that seriously, not flippantly). Exposing the swatting that some SJBs were doing had no effect that I could see. The Dog Trainer still prints embarrassingly slanted articles after you have spent years embarrassing them. You are like a boxer trying to follow the Marquess of Queensberry while the other guy has a chainsaw. Good on you, top sport and all that, I honestly would not want you to change. You are an exemplar for gentlemanly behavior. But maybe you could cut some slack for the guy who, after they pull your bloody corpse from the ring, decides he should shuck the gloves and pick up a shotgun.
One of the most entertaining things about all of this is the degree to which people like Cugel think arguments on internet message boards are going to alter the fate of Western Civilization and the American Way and so on. Yeah, Teddy going on rants about the need to put gay people in jail has the whole country enthralled. You keep at it, champ.
@Donald Campbell
Whether or not you are left alone depends on who you are. For example if you were gay would you still think Vox wants to leave you alone? Also ,it depends on perspective. Does legalizing gay marriage constitute leaving Vox alone?
And about progressives, I have to agree with Timothy Sandefur that conservatives are the new progressives.
I've never understood this meme. Somehow expressing that you think someone is wrong on a particular topic is cultish and cowardly? And you think that if I went to a right-wing site and started talking about the urgent need to enact stringent gun control laws, you wouldn't see the exact same thing? Explain your position to me, because as far as I can tell it makes zero sense.
@Mike A. —
Did you even read the article from Sowell that I linked to in my comment to you before you responded? Try to keep up. Sowell reports on the enormous retreat from civilization the has occurred in the black community in the last 55 years. Have you even heard of Thomas Sowell?
I call you a Social Justice Warrior because only a committed party member with religious-like faith could fail to see the social decline that has occurred across a big swath of society, or block it out of his mind.
@Dan-
Yeah, it was a pretty silly article. I'm not sure why you're so impressed with it. Just kidding, yes I am.
If you're genuinely interested in self-education. I'd start here:
http://iasp.brandeis.edu/pdfs/Author/shapiro-thomas-m/racialwealthgapbrief.pdf
I still don't get it. You want me to be insulted at the implication that I believe in justice? Or is it the 'warrior' part I'm supposed to get mad at? I'm OK with the implication that I'm willing to fight for what I believe in, actually.
What party is that? Am I a communist too? Yeesh.
Now you're just being insulting.
So when you say Western civilization is failing, specifically you're talking about problems in black communities. Actually, I agree with you there! Not sure why you're using grandiose language like 'western civilization,' but our society absolutely has failed in numerous ways, especially when it comes to ethnic and racial minorities, and we badly need reform across multiple institutions to address those failures. If you'd just come out and said that without all the grandstanding, maybe we'd have gotten somewhere faster!
I just read through all these comments.
Since this is a primarily legal blog, question: Who do I sue to get back the IQ points I lost in the last 20 minutes?
@Mike A. —
Someone is concerned about Civ. decline and you wrote, "Which type are you- the blacks are getting too uppity, the womenfolk are out of the kitchen".
So, you mentioned blacks sarcastically, and so I pointed out how civilization has sharply declined for blacks. You mentioned women sarcastically and so I pointed out genuine decline in the happiness of women in recent decades across many studies. Groups you seem to have so much concern for (is that just a pose?) actually aren't doing well at all.
If you have as much concern for these groups as you claim, you would perceive Western civilization as declining, or at least not doing particularly well.
You chose the topics, I expounded. I might have chosen different examples, but what I did is called steelmanning, focusing on what you seemed to perceive as your best arguments of civilizational improvement.
Of course our civilization isn't doing particularly well, especially when it comes to the status of non-straight-white-dudes. What's absurd, however, is to argue those status' are in decline on any sort of historically meaningful scale. Even if we grant that the US is more racist, misogynistic, and homophobic than it was in 1960- which is absurd, but we'll grant that for the sake of the discussion- that's hardly a meaningful timescale if we're talking about the literal progress of civilization as a whole.
@Mike A —
"especially when it comes to the status of non-straight-white-dudes"
C'mon, let me hold down my dinner. I said Social Justice Warrior but now I am fishing around for a stronger, more loaded term. Suggestions?
Seriously though, you set the terms, I just report. No, white America isn't doing so hot either.
Charles Murray's "Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010" is fairly thorough.
http://www.amazon.com/Coming-Apart-State-America-1960-2010/dp/030745343X
Maybe you wouldn't read Murray. Here's the New York Times.
"Life Spans Shrink for Least-Educated Whites in the U.S."
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/21/us/life-expectancy-for-less-educated-whites-in-us-is-shrinking.html?_r=0
Now that's something. Things have to be pretty bad for life expectancies to actually run backward, since medicine is always improving. Reversing life expectancies is pretty rare in our world today.
Is that vomit I smell dripping from this thread, or did someone crush a stink bug and wipe it on the internet? The Vox-world witless brain-washed sycophants have been released by their master and are flocking to Popehat to re-educate fallen, mislead readers of this lefty progressive gay-loving pussy-whipped SJW blog… (OK, breathe. ALL the Lulz. I know that was a bit much, but hyperbole and all) I suppose that manipulative fraud Vox considers this high theater: convince people (by which I mean men. Because Vox.) of the most dispicable, mean, and ignorant rubbish and follow their antics as they make fools of themselves defending him and his so-called theories and pronouncements. I would be quite entertained too if it didn't make me feel, umm… hmmm… "dirty" or "slimy" don't quite fit – there are times that those are quite acceptible… Oh, I know! Like after my first chemo treatment, when they hadn't adjusted my meds properly and I was so sick I just vomitted and shit all over myself – that's the feeling!! I get it whenever some unfortunate link leads me into Vox-world, and I'm getting it here. Now. Great thread highjacking, guys! Wasn't this about Clark wanting us all to get along??
Clarke, you opened this putrid, writhing bag – now it's time to clean up the snakes and get them off the plane before Popehat collapses under the weight of the Stupid. It burns us. Clark? Are you there? Clean-up on Aisle Popehat…
You had a serious illness? Clearly you're not strong or manly enough to have opinions, get off the internet already.
Clark, at first what you said seemed reasonable. I'd never heard of Vox Day. I just read several pages on his website, and you should probably rethink your claims. Dude is nuttier than a peanut farm, and a vitriolic twatwaffle to boot. I'm going to continue living without regard to his existence.
@Mike A —
"especially when it comes to the status of non-straight-white-dudes"
C'mon, let me hold down my dinner. I said Social Justice Warrior but now I am fishing around for a stronger, more loaded term. Suggestions?
Seriously though, you set the terms, I just report. No, white America isn't doing so hot either.
Charles Murray's "Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010" is fairly thorough.
Maybe you wouldn't read Murray. Here's the New York Times.
"Life Spans Shrink for Least-Educated Whites in the U.S."
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/21/us/life-expectancy-for-less-educated-whites-in-us-is-shrinking.html?_r=0
Now that's something. Things have to be pretty bad for life expectancies to actually run backward, since medicine is always improving. Reversing life expectancies is pretty rare in our world today.
@Dan — neither here nor there, really, but those 'falling' life expectancies may be little more than a statistical artifact. Interesting paper: http://www.jenndowd.com/uploads/3/7/4/7/37473923/dowd_hamoudi_14.pdf
@Dragonmum —
"Clark? Are you there? Clean-up on Aisle Popehat…" The SJW is instructing the blog owner to delete troublesome comments, stat!
Thicker skins please!! The trolling by Vox and his minions is strictly third rate. ISIS is trolling the ever-loving whatsit out of the Western World right now.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/isis-jihadi-bride-claims-forced-sex-with-yazidi-girls-is-never-rape-because-koran-condones-it-10271703.html
This publication Dabiq they have there needs a serious fisking by these Social Justice keyboard kings. They throw gays out of high buildings. They reintroduce slavery and have regular markets. What would it take for them to get noticed around here?
“And who knows, maybe Michelle Obama’s price won’t even exceed a third of a dīnār, and a third of a dīnār is too much for her [in the slave markets that we have here, because its 2015 after all].”
C'mon, guys, now that's just mean. Won't someone defend her honor?
You have truly opened my eyes. I now see what I failed to do: take an L.A. TImes writer who had bravely written about their battles with depression, and threaten to exploit that in any number of censorious ways to shut him or her up.
Instead, I made the mistake of responding to their articles with criticism based on facts and links. I now see how foolish that was. Had I merely followed the lead of "Vox Day," the L.A. Times would now be a newspaper in decline, with decreased readership and a steadily diminishing influence and relevance.
(This just in: they are precisely that anyway. But I don't have some ridiculously exaggerated sense of self-importance that leads me to believe I had anything to do with that.)
Now that "Vox Day" has definitively won the battle against social justice warriors (I guess, since you seem to be saying that), and annoying liberals now no longer exist, could you persuade him to turn his incredible powers of self-absorbed narcissism and blowhardery to the L.A. Times? It would be nice to shut them down for good, and clearly Only One Man possesses that power. To be sure, I never heard of him until yesterday, and could not care less about "Gamer Gate" or whatever the f*ck else the guy yammers on about. But he clearly has your confidence — and by gum, that's enough for me!
And Clark, I find it odd that you have such love for someone who is so obviously a clown and an insecure bleating buffoon — but there's no accounting for taste.
True! Also, not in any way opposed to anything I said!
Many people in this country, especially non-wealthy people, aren't doing great. Among non-wealthy people, white people are overall doing better than black people. None of this is even slightly controversial to anyone who can read basic statistics.
The fact that even mentioning the existence of racial disparities in economic/health/education/criminal justice/etc. outcomes makes you want to vomit says a lot about the type person you are, though!
@Dan; well, the difference is that everyone agrees ISIS is repugnant. If people here were trying to claim they were virtuous and noble, presumably we'd be spending more time on that topic.
Interesting, however, that ISIS and Teddy both agree that it's not rape if you're married to someone.
@Hulegu, I guess you've never seen "Batdude and Throbin"? I'd be up against some pretty stiff competition.
Can we please bring back dueling already? It'd be so nice if you could all just get together and solve your arguments that way: all the people who want to drag me to death behind a pickup truck on one side, and all the proggy nutcases who want to pillory us for "problematic gay-misoggyknee" on the other. Hand-grenades at five paces, just to make sure there are no survivors.
Then nuke the site from orbit, just to make sure.
You have totally whiffed this one, Clark.
You thought wrong when it came to your acquaintance. You bet that he would not behave poorly and that you would take them to task if they did. Then, when this acquaintance totally played to type and behaved poorly, you did not take them to task.
When you put up your 'controversial' views, you do so with the expectation that those challenged by them will at least do a gut check and maybe reconsider their opinion, and now, when your opinion was shown to be outright wrong, you do not seem to have rethought your own position at all. You spend a lot of your post equivocating and defending the position of the person you were completely wrong about.
This seems like total arrogance to me. Your readers should be prepared to consider a contrary opinion in light of opposing evidence, but you won't do the same when presented with your own errors.
"I'd like to be half the man Ken is some day." – You are not even on the same path right now.
Does anyone else get the feeling that Vox is actually here in this comment section pretending to be someone else using the name Cugel?
Are you blaming SJWs for trickle-down?
That is an awful lot of words trying to explain why you broke a promise to back a friend. You promised Ken that you would have his back if Day came after him on this specific post, and instead you are blaming Ken for starting a fight that started so long ago that you can't be sure who really started it. That is bullshit. "He started it!" is a child's excuse. You failed your friend, and now you are scrambling for excuses.You should be ashamed of yourself.
As an aside, I continue to be nonplussed at the idea that I'm supposed to be offended at the implication that I believe in justice and am willing to fight for what I believe in. Still haven't heard a good explanation of where the insult is location in that particular appellation.
@Mikee – The "Cugel" name has been used as a sockpuppet and/or troll signal for years by some fans of genre fiction – because it's so very "the clever" – badump bump.
It is a reference to a Jack Vance character that, frankly, has grown a bit hackneyed through overuse(the reference, not the character)
Great post!
Looking forward to further praise for misunderstood artists, e.g. that Austrian painter who had such marvelous ideas about the reorganization of state and society, and puppies as well.
Mike: The insult is intended to be that, like the Holy Roman Empire, none of the three words are really true.
Do the right thing, Clark. Rain your hellfire. If they had been sparring over politics or Ken had called Vox Day out over some other horrible thing he's done… that would have been that. The post was about illness and you KNEW what would happen. You have no excuse not to use your powers for good, for once.
Just do it.
A summary of the entire brouhaha
Clark: "I will rain hellfire down upon Mr Scorpion if he stings Mr. Frog while Frog is helping Scorpion across the river "
*** Mr Scorpion, to nobody's surprise except Clark, stings Mr Frog ***
Clark: "Well, yeah, that was a naughty thing to do, but I have a great deal of respect for Mr Scorpion, usually — he has stung some very deserving victims in the past. Also, you must agree that he is an extremely intelligent scorpion, and one who really forces you watch where you put your fingers.
"Vox is a performance artist par excellence"
To quote another champion of free speech: "If you spend a great deal of your time pretending to be an asshole to get a reaction from people…you aren't pretending. You are an asshole"
Mike A:"When someone like that – someone who believes having depression is a character flaw (not to mention being female/black/gay) – comes after your friend, this type of insane equivocation is the height of moral cowardice."
This can not be repeated enough
This is really easy, Clark. You could have said 'Ken, I'm fairly sure that Vox Day won't be a repellent shit-weasel and use your mental ilness to attack you, but if he does I'm afraid I think you have said some unpleasant things about him in the past. In the end, I will have to remain neutral Up to you if you publish this article, but I won't have your back because my political allegiance to Teddy Beale trumps my long friendship with you'.
Instead you promised to show unconditional support and condemn Vox Day if he turned out to be the terrible person most of us knew he was all along. Instead you betrayed your promise and wrote a blog Vox's supporters see as being in defense of Vox's position.
You let down a friend. You did it in public. You did it over a stance of your friend's that was non-partisan and truly admirable. Clark, you will never live this down. Sorry. That is just another one of those harsh realities of the internet you tell the rest of us to accept.
@Mike A:
"Actually, no, that's not true. There's more intra-group genetic diversity than inter-group difference, which means there's actually every chance a German and Japanese person have more alleles in common than two Germans."
That's called Lewontin's Fallacy for a reason. If you focus on specific alleles, you may find wide variance, but when you look at the whole genome it is never the case that a German and a Japanese have more alleles in common than a German and another German, which is why forensic analysts can determine someone's ethnic background by going over dna samples.
@nyccine — While I agree with the basic idea of your post regarding Lewontin's fallacy, as with most things, it all depends on how you look and what methods you use. Good paper on precisely this:
Genetic Similarities Within and Between Human Populations
I'm neither a scientist nor a statistician. I start out deeply suspicious of claims of inherent intelligence difference amongst ethnic groups, both for historical reasons (junk science has historically been used to pitch the concept) and practical reasons (it's dubious that inherent traits on something as complex as intelligence can be teased apart from culture and environment).
But let's leave that aside.
Can anyone explain to me why I should give a shit?
I mean, if someone else wants to spent their time thinking about it, that's their business, like if they made it their life to debunk penis size statistics to prove that white men actually have the edge and that science to the contrary is propaganda.
But why should I care? There's no prospect that I'm going to agree to a change in public policy based on it. The quest for pure knowledge and all of that is swell, I suppose, but what difference is this going to make, if I suspend my suspicion?
Ken,
I think any knowledge (if it's accurate) helps people make better decisions. I tend to see cultural influences as largely influential in differences between groups, for what it's worth. I find the work of Thomas Sowell persuasive in this area. But doesn't it make sense, if you are trying to ameliorate conditions in a group, to fashion a policy that gets at the cause of those conditions? And doesn't that mean you have to know what the cause is to begin with?
Of course, my solution is generally not to "fashion policies" on a governmental level but rather to leave it to social groups, technological innovation, and other market-based distributed intelligence to improve people's lives, since those have been the most effective forces for improving people's lives historically. But that's a choice that is informed by my opinions about the causes of problems, which I think it is useful for us to at least try to know.
Until you go to the doctor, where your self-identification and phenotype will be elicited or assessed and taken into account for both diagnosis and treatment….
As for intelligence, the biological and social factors are so abundant– and the relationships obtaining among them so complex– that we should be skeptical of pat answers– especially those that align too conveniently with pre-scientific ideological inferences.
Vox Day grew up in his mommy's basement playing war games. He never learned the essential social lesson that other people are actual people and not just objects in your visual field. This would ordinarily be diagnosed as sociopathic. Sociopaths generally do enjoy some success in life, but it is precisely because they are willing to cut anyone in their way. The pleasure comes from the manipulation. Winning is secondary. You can see that in his fight with the Hugos.
(Longtime lurker, here. I'm fairly sure I've never commented before now.)
After reading the OP, I figured there'd be plenty of folks echoing my own take on the whole Ken v. Vox thing. And there are. No need for me to go there.
However, it's stunning to me, after Clark's surprisingly spineless OP and two days of comment, how blatantly unsupportive Clark is when it comes to his friend, Ken, and how unconditionally supportive Ken remains of his friend, Clark.
After two days of comments, Ken has spoken directly to Clark: of loving friendship and, yes, disagreement. I've yet to see Clark speak directly to Ken.
Perhaps Clark feels ashamed for being such an obviously shitty friend. I genuinely hope he does feel ashamed- it suggests there's still hope for him as a human bean.
Wow, what you just did there was incredibly dishonest. It's not called Lewontin's Fallacy, Anthony Edwards wrote a paper critiquing Richard Lewontin and titled it 'Lewontin's Fallacy;' his argument has been controversial, to say the least. And either way, race remains a social, not scientific, construct; geographically-linked genetic variation is continuous, not discrete.
In other words, we have to do this research because certain people have a creeping suspicion the real problem with The Blacks is that they're just less genetically gifted.
Trying to study 'race and intelligence' is bullshit for all kinds of reasons; race isn't a scientific concept, intelligence is nearly impossible to define (let alone measure) in any meaningful, quantifiable way, and even if that wasn't true any hypothetical differences would necessarily be between median group-members and extremely small, making it hard to figure out how they'd matter.
Which goes to Ken's point- setting aside the fact the idea itself is absurd, can you actually think of one policy change that would logically result from the hypothetical study proving the median white person is smarter than a median brown person?
Ken,
There is a small subset of idiots who think that our morals and politics should conform to some divinely instantiated natural law. The knowledge of natural laws should lead to certain prescriptions for human behavior, such as the political segregation of people into nobler and lesser classes, based on such things as intelligence, fitness, dick size, skin color, etc. When morons like Vox are arguing for race realism, they're not just on the quest for pure knowledge. They're sowing the seeds of political discrimination. That's why you should care.
Here's a good primer on natural law theories.
What your doctor is doing is using race as a proxy for ancestry, which is potentially better than nothing, but also a super blunt instrument. If you identify as black, there's a chance you descend from (say) the Maghrebis, Chokwe, or Herero people, all of which exhibit the same degree of genetic variation between them that each group does with (say) German people. Your identification as black is an indication you're more likely to be Duffy-negative… except that only applies if you have Chokwe ancestry, not Herero or Maghrebis.
In other words, asking someone what their race gives you information in the Bayesian sense, but it remains a social and not scientific category.
"There's no prospect that I'm going to agree to a change in public policy based on it."
Well then there isn't a reason for you to give a shit, and there can't be one, if that's your position. The problem with this position is that if the claims of inherent intelligence differences are true then our existing public policies are catastrophically wrong, and doing a lot of harm to the population as a whole. You can't, for example, commit to disparate impact as being ipso facto evidence of racial discrimination, if it is indeed true that natural abilities simply shook out that way. You can't in good faith insist upon spending vast sums in education to bridge racial gaps, if it is indeed true that the gaps are there because of differences in average abilities, and won't be resolved by throwing a ton of money at the problem.
"it's dubious that inherent traits on something as complex as intelligence can be teased apart from culture and environment"
And yet that's exactly what identical twin studies have shown – a low-IQ child being adopted into a wealthy family from birth, with every advantage available, simply does not impact IQ at all. Environment, short of bashing a kid's head in, really doesn't impact intelligence. You have to be careful not to conflate education and learned behaviors with intelligence; they're not the same. It's also important to note that average racial intelligence gaps are just that; averages. No-one who claims there are obvious racial gaps in IQ is asserting that *all* Far-East Asians and Ashkenazi Jews are smarter than every single Western European, who are in turn smarter than all Africans.
Also, while it's nice that you approve of "the quest for pure knowledge," society emphatically does not, and plenty of careers have been ruined for asserting what the data clearly shows.
Only moments later, Nyccine comes along to prove my point. Well done, tool.
"can you actually think of one policy change that would logically result from the hypothetical study proving the median white person is smarter than a median brown person?"
Murray Rothbard saw the potential of "race realism" as an alternative to historical slavery and racism as an explanation for why certain groups now seem to do worse than others. If that alternative explanation could be maintained, this would lessen the perceived need for reparations or other affirmative action to remedy historical injustices. Which is bullshit, because those historical injustices undoubtedly had effects that last into the present day, independently of the race realist hypothesis. In his better moments Rothbard recognized that the present distribution of property is unjust and caused by historical injustice, and that there can be no justice without redistributing wealth.
And the mask comes off. Even if we threw out everything we knew about population genetics and anthropology and accepted your (wrong) premises that race is a useful scientific concept, any hypothetical differences would be miniscule at best.
So much wrong here. One, the idea that IQ measures intelligence is absurd, and has been pretty thoroughly debunked. Two, intelligence itself is notoriously difficult to define in both a quantifiable and objective way. Three, you're either ignorant or lying about the heritability of IQ; there's a significant environment impact on IQ scores, and furthermore the lower the SES of the person being tested, the greater the impact of environment and lower the impact of genetics. Read, please.
Why should I care what racists think about race?
@mikee
I'm not Vox Day. Never heard of him before the Sad Puppies thing. I'm not even a follower of his blog. I've read one of his novels (to see if the SJW's had a point and that his entry was really an embarrassment to the Hugos.They were lying as I should have known all along.) and maybe ten or fifteen blog entries. I do follow Patterico's blog and he can tell you I'm not Vox if he is so inclined.
@king squirrel
I think you are making that up. I've never seen "Cugel" used as a pen name anywhere except on Patterico's blog where I use it occasionally. And your comments about Jack Vance are myopic, insensate and nugatory.
@MIke A
For someone so in love with the term "scientific illiteracy" you pulled a real boner when you suggested that a categorization can't be "scientific" if the boundaries are continuous rather than discreet. Languages and language groups have borders at least as fuzzy as race, yet they are both important concepts in linguistics. Geography is also a thing of fuzzy borders but it is used by lots of sciences. In fact, practically all populations have fuzzy conditions, and race is just the largest category of human populations.
What's funny is that I mostly agree with you that race isn't a very interesting category for either scientific or social purposes. But I object to your attempts to make it sound like anyone who refers to race is scientifically illiterate. Race has been used a lot in science and in technologies with a scientific background (someone mentioned DNA analysis). You really need to learn to distinguish between "I don't agree with you on that point" and "Your belief in that shows that you have a mental defect or suffer from ignorance." The fact that you so quickly resort to the second when you encounter the first suggests that you yourself are suffering from the mental condition that you don't have the capacity to evaluate evidence objectively.
Yes, yes it is. This is an easily confirmable fact Mike; people who disagree with Lewontin's claims refer to it as "Lewontin's Fallacy" in reference to Edward's paper.
And for you, it's actually to say the most, since you clearly lack the necessary background to determine if Edward's claims are true or not. They are. The fact that it is career suicide in the current academic climate to say so doesn't change that. We are more than willing to consider subspecies of other animal groups who share far less genetic diversity than humans do (see:https://lesacreduprintemps19.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/woodley-2009-is-homo-sapiens-polytypic-human-taxonomic-diversity-and-its-implications.pdf); the reason why we do not do so with humans is due to political concerns, not scientific ones.
In other words, you're just going to insert the strawman argument you wish he would have made rather than address the actual argument, which is that we cannot assume the cause of the problem – and thus, the course of action we're going to take to address it – we have to actually prove it.
No, I said that the concept of race isn't scientific, because it suggests discrete populations that don't exist. Please try to at least address what I said, instead of making up new positions for me.
I could link you to literally dozens if not hundreds of papers on the subject, but I'm guessing you won't read them, because it's too hard for you to come to terms with.
Race is meaningful as a sociological phenomenon. That doesn't mean it corresponds with a scientific reality. Christ.
OK, now you're just being intentionally thick.
Your position is roughly as credible as the guys who think the biologists are wrong about evolution. I get that you really, really, want to believe race exists, but unfortunately for you the experts in the field are pretty unanimous on this subject.
Holy Christ Mike A., you have literally no idea what you are talking about. None. Absolutely nothing you have said is correct. It's good to see status-signalling so blatant, I guess; saves everyone else the time from having to bother.
Oh, you're one of those. The evil scientists are conspiring to keep the truth from us! Thank god for brave free-thinkers like you, who with the power of your bachelor's degree have found the truth. It's really fun how the arguments of people who think evolution is a lie, believe in Young Earth Creationism, practice homeopathy, and think jet fuel can't melt steel beams all converge on the same rhetoric.
No, I'm not characterizing his argument, I'm characterizing yours.
You made the assertion that twin studies proved there's zero environmental impact on IQ. I linked to one demonstrating extremely high environmental impact on IQ, and offered to link to many more. You fell back on name calling. I think we can draw our conclusions pretty easily here.
Nyccine, I don't see how it helps to provide links to papers published in scientifically dubious journals. It just shows us how credulous you are.
Bahahahaha thank you Dan, I didn't even notice the imprimatur. For those of you not in the field, Medical Hypothesis is the one that got kicked off PubMed for publishing a series of AIDs denialist articles and a lengthy discussion of how
God, I wish I'd noticed where he was sourcing his claims sooner, I'd have spent way less time trying to explain to him why they were false.
Lol, I missed the quote button.
What mask? Do you think yelling "racist!" gets you points?
We aren't.
There's a measurable full standard deviation, Mike. As in, that is what exists now. Stamping your feet and loudly insisting that hypotheticals would still prove me wrong don't address that.
IQ *is* intelligence Mike. When a geneticist is discussing, intelligence, he is exclusively referring to what is measure by IQ; he is not in any way, shape, or form discussing some psychiatrist's preferences that we consider emotional intelligence (or even more hilariously, athletic intelligence).
No, it isn't. This is just grotesquely wrong – people discussing intelligence are referring to the same concept.
Bullshit. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. If environment was a significant impact then there is absolutely no freaking way twin and adoption studies can show heritability estimates in excess of .80 but environmental impacts as nill. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9549239
@Cugel
*shrug*
I've seen it plenty. Along with "J. Harshaw", "Hagbard", "J.McKie", and derivatives – it gets used quite a bit as a forum handle for – as Clark would say – "performance artistry".
I made no comments on Jack Vance.
I think Cugel the Clever is a pretty fun and interesting character for what it's worth. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and accept that you've never seen this done before, but for me it was like hearing a "the cake is a lie!" or "I used to be an adventurer like you…" joke again. Just tired and played out.
You're referring to pop-science ideas that are totally irrelevant to the more fundamental issue that IQ is ultimately a measure of ones ability to answer specific types of standarized test questions. Pattern-matching and the ability to complete sequences of 3d shapes is not equivalent to 'intelligence.'
And please don't talk about what geneticists mean when they say 'intelligence'- it's embarrassing for you and insulting to people who are actually in the biological sciences.
Now you're not just reading my links, you're not even reading your own! That's a special kind of silly.
Mike A.
I thought about pointing that out, but then I decided that it wasn't worth it … He probably didn't even read the paper that accompanies the abstract.
"In other words," you are going to take my perfectly defensible statement and rewrite it so that it is indefensible and bears no relationship to what I wrote — and then preface it all with the words "in other words."
Does it give you a little frisson of self-righteousness to go around calling people racists? Or is there some other reason that you put ridiculous words in the mouth of someone making an argument you don't like?
Ah, I see some of VD's "extremely smrt and not afraid to say so" buddies have shown up to inundate us with long, dishonest arguments that would, if correct, justify their racism, misogyny, and homophobia – though the racial angle seems to be the only one with legs in this conversation.
It comes as no surprise that their tactics and sources are just as dubious as ever, and on par with troofers, creationists and anti-vaxxers.
Also a quick note to the commenter upthread who was accusing one of them of being VD himself – it's almost certainly not him. VD is perfectly happy to proudly post his little rants under his real name. And he has plenty of lickspittles who will gladly charge into battle on his behalf, ready to completely destroy the forces of… well anyone who dares challenge his unabashed white supremacy, the unfailingly stupid and dishonest pseudoscience "sources", or the tepid sixth grade "logic" he uses to justify marital rape, racial discrimination, and violence against LGBTs.
I think it was an entirely fair summary of your argument. You said that in order to craft good public policy, we need to understand the causes of the problems we face, and studying the link between race and intelligence will help us do that. In other words, you think it's at least worth looking into the possibility that problems in black communities are the result of black people being inherently less intelligent.
I realize I'm being more explicit about your argument than you are, but I'm certainly not distorting it.
So, what's Prenda Law up to these days?
@Clark:
Obviously, given the topic, this post has become a wretched hive of scum and villainy. This was to be expected, because people are terrible, people on the internet doubly so. Unfortunate in its very unexpectedness.
That said, a point has been raised and you haven't responded (How dare you!!111!!1!). Rather than fault you, as the others raising this point have, I would like to ask you about it(though given 200+ comments I'm unlikely to be read and less likely to be cared about, particularly given that being concise is not a strong suit of mine).
Personally, I can say that I'm neither ignorant, nor dishonest, when I claim that I think Vox Day is dumb, stupid, intellectually lazy, and dishonest. Logical is something I reserve only for stated premises and the ones stating them–an argument is, after all, either valid or invalid regardless of its soundness. I confess to not being entirely sure enough to lob the accusation he's illogical at him. But opinions differ, and that's fine. I'd be happy to defend against ignorance or dishonesty in my position regarding Vox, but defending the position itself is irrelevant. That I think he's a waste of space is irrelevant; undoubtedly, we all have folks we're willing to consider our "in-group" that we can't really defend, and shouldn't be called to. I like you, even though I couldn't defend the overwhelming majority of your points or positions. You're Clark! I like Patrick even though I'm pretty sure I constantly annoy him (and, he's not writing here any more?! Buwah?). I like Penn Jillette, I liked Hitchens. When folks I like say objectionable things, I'm less angry than I when it's a person I don't like. That's how it works, and I try to bear that in mind.
You seem to see Ken and Vox as having an ongoing slapfight. One that never ends, and that you feel as though Ken started, justifying itself by its own existence in a self-perpetuating fashion. But I don't see how that works. When the combatants separate, then barring a ring's rules, the fight is over. Ken hadn't poked Vox, Vox (presumably) hadn't poked Ken in at least, say, a day or so. Whatever issues had been, had subsided for the time being. Then Ken decided to write his post. Vox felt the need to say "if you have a mental illness and you are foolish enough to attack me, then you can be certain that I will exploit your weakness to whatever extent I happen to find useful or amusing." HE attempts to justify it, but that's hitting below the belt, and I expect you know it. As was the original tweet, which came otherwise out of the proverbial blue (their longstanding enmity notwithstanding).
Now, you said you'd rain hellfire if Vox did this. You now say that you just with shey'd stop slapping each other.
Here's how I see it. Imagine, for a moment, there's a bar. In this bar, there's a known violent person (A). Outside the bar is another known violent person (B). (Here, we're continuing the slapping metaphor–obviously, I'm referencing rhetoric rather than violence).
They've fought numerous times. In fact, many would argue that just by stepping into the bar, B should just expect A to punch them. But you're Person C, friend to A and B.
B says "I've been thinking about going into this bar for X reason". You, friend to B, say: "Oh, that's a good reason. Surely, A won't attack you for coming in for this reason. Heck, if he does, I'll back you up."
B steps into the bar, and A immediately punches them in the junk. B punches back.
You then say "Guys, I wish you'd stop fighting! Ugh, I can't remember how this whole feud started, though it was probably B."
B went into the bar with you saying you'd have his back. Even if B knew you probably wouldn't (and I don't know that, I'm just saying), that's irrelevant to your own position. I just don't understand your reasoning for NOT having his back. I'm not accusing you of cowardice, but of confusing me.
While I read your post, I don't really get it as regards to this. As best I can see, you said you'd rain hell-fire, but when the exact situation in which you said you'd rain hell-fire occurred, "…now that it comes down to it, I realize that I'm not angry – I'm sad." I've been involved in bar fights on occasion, relics of my mis-spent youth. Never as instigator, but as separator. Anger doesn't have to factor in.
There are two ways to inject yourself into a bar fight. One is mere separation. Perhaps your friend was at fault, or you see how both sides got where they are, so you simply inject yourself in an attempt to create space in hopes of letting cooler heads prevail. And then there's the one where you come in on the side of you friend, because your friend is being bullied or otherwise wronged. Neither is guaranteed, depending on context, to end the fight–and on the internet, it's likely that neither would. But it seems like you took the former option, when you promised the latter. He said shit, and you…are trying to walk a middle path. Simply being sad doesn't seem to justify this response, and I do respect you, so…hence the confusion.
"I think it was an entirely fair summary of your argument. You said that in order to craft good public policy, we need to understand the causes of the problems we face, and studying the link between race and intelligence will help us do that. In other words, you think it's at least worth looking into the possibility that problems in black communities are the result of black people being inherently less intelligent."
Gee. Where to start.
First, I never said a word about black communities or black anything.
Second, I said: "I tend to see cultural influences as largely influential in differences between groups, for what it's worth. I find the work of Thomas Sowell persuasive in this area." (If you haven't read his books, and I am going to make an educated guess that you haven't, he talks about much more than black and white.)
But yes, while sharing Ken's skepticism regarding our ability to isolate genetic differences and separate them from the cultural influences that I suspect are far more influential, I do believe that more knowledge is better. I'm willing to say that (more knowledge is better) even if it allows lazy and self-righteous people to falsely claim racism on my part.
Would it be unfair, Mike A., to characterize your argument as disdaining the notion of any study in this area, to maintain your positive self-image that you are not a racist? (I suspect you think that would be unfair. And yet, you seem to hold the comfortable and self-righteous belief that even expressing interest in further data and knowledge in this area is always an excuse to engage in racism, and you won't have any part of that!)
Please let me know if you think I am misreading your comments in any way. There is a certain strain of person out there who loves to suggest others are racist. You seem to be one of those people, based on your leaping to put words in my mouth that I didn't say — but I don't know you and maybe that is unfair of me.
Well, that's a lot of words that didn't actually address what I said! The
No, you did a decent job talking around your point.
I've read his opinion pieces, which were pretty silly. I'm not surprised you're a fan, though.
You have this weird penchant for engaging in pop-psych speculation about the motives of other people. It probably stems from your relationship with your father, right? Maybe focus more on the actual issues at hand.
Maybe you're drawing the wrong conclusions from the number of people you come across who suggest that you have racist beliefs.
I'm just asking whether we can study whether jet fuel can melt steel beams! I'm not claiming 9/11 was an inside job, I'm just interested in data and knowledge! Stop being so close minded!
@Grifter
I'm afraid this only works in contexts where fights have a defined beginning and end — boxing or fencing, for instance. On the Internet, I suspect (well, actually, my experience suggests) that while there is a beginning, there is no such thing as an end: once people have started a fight, there is practically no way they will stop and forget; each new exchange, however long the hiatus was, will just be the continuation of one indefinitely long fight.
@Albert ARIBAUD:
In some sense, certainly, in terms of overarching enmity. In terms of being at war. But in terms of the battle? I disagree.
Waitwaitwait, that post was ALL VD did? I assumed that post was just his explanation for why he did the horrible thing I assumed he'd done.
He didn't start calling up Ken's clients to ruin his reputation? He didn't send a fake tip to the bar association? He didn't, in actual fact, do anything except write a post on the internet with vaguely mean things in it?
You people just enjoy being self-righteously angry at acceptable targets, don't you?
Also, I find it hilarious that my sexual attraction is determined entirely by my genes, and anyone who says it isn't is a HORRIBLE BIGOT who needs to be Thrown Onto The Ash Heap Of History… but my intelligence (or lack thereof) and my propensity to behave badly after a few pints is entirely socialized behaviour that my genes had nothing to do with.
And anyone who says otherwise is a HORRIBLE BIGOT etc. etc.
Congratulations, you've mastered the art of believing contradictory things to maximize your ability to feel outrage. I hope it gives you the heart attacks you deserve.
Actually, there's a decent amount of evidence sexual attraction is the result of a combination of genetic, hormonal, environmental and cultural factors. Pretty non-controversial scientifically speaking.
There's absolutely a genetic component to 'intelligence,' though intelligence itself is notoriously hard to define and quantify. What there isn't is a racial component, because race doesn't have any validity as a genetic/scientific construct.
So to sum up, both of your claims are strawmen.
@Albert ARIBBAUD
Yeah, once you jump into the e-celeb twitter mud-wrestling pit, there's no getting out. It gets you a large audience and a lot of cheering, but only from the kind of people who are there in the hopes that bikinis will get ripped off.
Actually, forget the metaphor: that would be a much more dignified way to handle the whole matter.
Mike A.,
I see that you are indeed one of those people who enjoys making baseless claims of racism. It was therefore a waste of time for me to talk to you. Now I know.
If you don't like being accused of holding racist beliefs, don't go on endlessly about how much you'd like to know if black people really are inherently stupid, for purely academic purposes of course.
But yes, I'll admit this is a reasonably entertaining diversion while I wait for my models to finish running. It probably is a character flaw, but hey:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VcrNn8AiWMc/Tq2CavD4Y1I/AAAAAAAABCs/iv07lVmamsE/s1600/Someone+is+wrong+on+internet.png
I didn't. You made that up. As anyone who bothers who read my comments on this thread can see for themselves.
Give me an interpretation of those two statements that's not "we need to make sure the reason non-white people are less economically successful than white people isn't just that they're dumb." I'll wait here.
*oh, and just to forestall another misdirect, it was nyccine who wrote the first comment, but you who referred to it as 'perfectly defensible.'
Nope, you're making things up again. I called my own statement perfectly defensible. Now you're pretending I said that about someone else's statement. You can't write a single comment without making things up.
You know what, you're right- I got the threading wrong. Let me revise, then:
Give me an interpretation of that statement that's not "we need to make sure the reason non-white people are less economically successful than white people isn't just that they're dumb." I'll wait here.
There are many such interpretations, as should be obvious — but I am not interested in discussion with you any more.
Your inability to suggest even one is obvious, for sure.
I'm not so sure that grinding this comment thread into oblivion wouldn't be a mercy, given the op.
That said, I don't really want to continue to watch people try and do so. Move on.
"Your inability to suggest even one is obvious, for sure."
If you agree to pay me $10 for each one I provide I will happily do so. If you are not willing to put your money where your mouth is, then the mere pleasure of discourse with you is not enough for me to continue. Care to accept?
"I could totally prove I'm right, but I don't care enough to try."
I remember that one from the playground.
All of a sudden you're not so confident that I can't do it, are you?
People are less reckless when something is at stake for them. I learned that from Thomas Sowell.
If you're that confident I can't do it, put up the money. If you're not, pretend I didn't make the challenge and try to fake your way through it. So far you are choosing the latter course.
This is one for the books. Unless I pay you to prove you're right, you're unwilling to do so, which is proof I'm wrong.
I have to admit I'm actually impressed. This is masterclass trolling.
Nope. I am just demonstrating that you made a claim that you're unwilling to back up with (a small amount of) money, It was easy for you to say I couldn't do it. Now you'd have to shell out a whole ten bucks if it turned out that you were talking out of your rear end, and all of a sudden you don't seem to confident.
Your only way to save face now is to accept and then claim that any example I give somehow doesn't meet your criteria.
Bravo, seriously. I'm going to file this one away.
Bored now.
I made my point, Grandy. I'm done.
Yup, those comments were about as useless as I expected.
On the article itself, I'd have to say I'm not surprised that Clark would cuddle Theodore like that, but that doesn't make T. any less of a dick. Oh gosh, I called him a name! How inappropriate.
Vox Day ("Vox Dei" srs) is a famous and storief Internet crackpot and heir to the World Net Daily fortune and pictures exist of him cosplaying with a giant flaming sword. Everything I've said is quite true, as are even sillier things I haven't. Clarkhat, I'm not your mom or anything, but I still feel you should spend more of your time reading improving literature and pondering the beauty contained in every detail of God's Creation and less time sucking up to cautionary tales about the dangers of Internet addiction. Your father and I are worried.
Serious question: Who is the left-wing version of Vox Day?
@Chaon
"Requires Hate"/"Benjanun Sriduangkaew". Except they're currently being "rehabilitated" by the left after a brief purge for choosing the wrong targets. There was a bit of outrage at the fact she told "women of colour" they should be raped by a pack of dogs, rather than sticking to acceptable targets.
Clark…I hadn't necessarily THOUGHT you were better than this, but I had HOPED you were. Patterico…that is in fact the most masterful trolling I've ever seen. Getting paid to argue with people on the internet? That would be some gig…
Recap: Ken is a very good writer and willing to be thoughtful about sensitive subjects with great personal meaning.
Clark wants to sound sensitive but not badly enough to keep his promises.
Patterico wants actual MONEY to prove what a great troll he is.
Mike A. reads a lot and doesn't mind throwing good mental effort after bad.
"Vox Day" is a waste of pixels and bandwith. There are perfectly good cat memes that could use his space.
Vox is a troll. The first rule of the internets is don't feed the trolls (OK actually the first rule of the internets is PORN!!!111!!!!!, but this is a clsoe second), so the best way to treat his trollish posts (and this was one of them) is to ignore them.
There are times when he writes things I find enlightening, thought-provoking, inspiring even. But then there are times when he acts like a total cunt. This is one of the latter.
Oh wow, they're already organizing boycotts of Laura J Mixon for exposing RH, despite her saying:
Asking for that makes her some kind of evil gamergater, apparently. I love watching the left eat their own.
There is no left-wing equivalent of Vox Day.
Wow. You equate Vox Day with someone who calls for death, genocide, dismemberment and acid maiming of people she doesn't like? Has Vox Day done that? Now THAT would justify some of the extreme statements I've seen about him here (although not the ones about him being stupid or ignorant–anyone who says that either has never read anything he has written or just has no capacity for impartially evaluating someone they don't like).
Absolutely. An internet troll saying she hopes her critics die in a fire has much less connection to real-world harm than advocating for incarcerating gay people, or spreading the idea that rape is morally acceptable.
@Cugel:
Well that's just utterly and completely false. I am perfectly capable of impartially evaluating him–and evaluated him as an idiot. And not a charming idiot, but rather an unwarrantedly arrogant, hateful, arguably evil one, which is why I'm so quick to call him such. I generally try not to call people "idiots"; there's baggage there, a condemnation over and above simply accusing someone of being not quite the brightest crayon in the box. It is, in many ways, a subjective term, and it's one I apply to him because his words more than warrant it. I recognize that you're incapable of accepting this–that I impartially evaluated him as an idiot over and above that I disagree with him–but that's not really my problem. I'd be happy to defend this position of mine, though I rather think that creating a new rabbithole of argument isn't really ideal in this particular forum.
On Vox Day – or rather, Theodore Beale, since I detest using his self-selected egotistical moniker – Clark has an unfortunate blindspot and I find myself agreeing, unsurprisingly, with Ken, Patrick, and Patterico.
Beale is a classic example of a narcissist. I would not be surprised if he scores high on the factors for ASPD either. Narcissists often demonstrate higher-than-average intelligence, which Beale – by his constant, forceful, and painfully self-promoting statements on the subject – is obvious familiar with. That said, average IQ is 100, by definition. In my experience, and through more than a little psychology education, a person who repeatedly feels the need to reference how much more intelligent they are than everyone else (*cough* http://voxday.blogspot.ca/2015/05/caricatures.html *cough*) isn't.
Beale is a narcissist, but, like most, appears to be both profoundly self-promoting and profoundly-insecure. It's a particularly loathsome combination in its result. I've read some of his word; I find most of it neither compelling nor logical. There are a number of places he rejects well-established science with hand-waving about his level of intelligence; there are many others where he is simply offensive. That said, he's entitled to his opinions. The rest of us are entitled to ignore him, which is a course of action I vehemently recommend and which I am now returning to.
Great post Ken. Ignore the haters. Clark, we disagree often but I usually find your arguments at least worth contemplating. This is an exception. You have, as Ken put it, a blind spot concerning Beale, one which surprises me given how transparent he truly is.
bahahaahaahahaha
No, he believes exactly what he says. It's not performance art. It's actually him. It's him being bald-faced honest.
Sorry, but Theo didn't bootstrap it. It was Paul Sebastien and Daniel Lenz who were the main drivers behind Psykosonik. Theo ditched out after the first album and was told never to darken the door of Wax Trax ever again. That was due to his severe drug problem, which was legend amongst the industrial scene at the time.
Ah yes, the Dread Ilk cult. I agree, he is a very good cult leader, taking on after his father, Robert Beale, who led a tax protestor group. I don't think Theo has managed to get his Dread Ilk to perform assassinations for him, though, unlike his father directing hits against a federal judge.
It's very easy to form your own publishing company (Castalia House) when you're using the funds you helped your father embezzle from his own company (Comtrol) and tax evade with. Of course, we won't know exactly how much that was – though it is suspected to be millions – until Theo steps foot on US soil again. Which he hasn't in many, many years; after all, the moment he does, the federal authorities will have some very sharp questions for him to answer.
Why yes, you can say all these things, if you prefer. I don't. I just wonder why he never speaks of his funding and connections to the leaders of certain European political parties. You know, Jobbik in Hungary, the British National Party and UKIP in the United Kingdom, the Perussuomalaiset in Finnland, the Sweden Democrats in Sweden, or various elements within the Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschland in Germany. He certainly never speaks about his residence in Italy and his intimate friendships with the National Front party there, and especially, Alessandra Mussolini.
Oh, he's neither stupid, illogical, or lazy. He's mentally disturbed, in the same way his father is, but he's not stupid at all. He is perfectly logical in the context of his mental disturbance.
The same thing he's been trying to achieve throughout his entire life – the massaging of his own ego.
Well, here's my motivation in regards to Vox/Theo: I just speak the facts about him. I present it plainly, bluntly. You're not going to pay attention to it, you're not going to believe it – but that doesn't matter. I've satisfied my own conscience on the matter. I've put down what I know and what Vox boasted to me in person here in black and white.
Since you're such an e-buddy of Vox's, ask him why his own former bandmates won't talk to him. Ask him why he became persona non grata amongst the industrial scene in the USA. Ask him why he won't step foot on American soil. Ask him about his political friendships and funding in Europe. Ask him why he refuses to discuss anything in relation to his father, Robert Beale.
And then ask yourself why you're a buddy of his and writing a Vox Day apologetic after he castigates your real-life friend who's gone to the mat for you. Assuming he tells you the truth.
Vox Day, literally: "a few acid-burned faces is a small price to pay for lasting marriages, stable families, legitimate children, low levels of debt, strong currencies, affordable housing, homogenous populations, low levels of crime, and demographic stability"
The world's finest neanderthal-supremacist has also done his fair share of calling for death and genocide, but you know, maybe he actually does like those people and he just wants to hurt them for their own good?
@Chaon:
That would be Lyndon LaRouche with a dash of Bret Kimberlin.
@Hulegu: Prenda mkII: disability lawsuit trolling. See comments in Ken's lawsplainer article from May 18
When I read Ken's post about his breakdown and his struggles, my overwhelming impression was sheer bewilderment. It's obvious that I have zero empathy since I was completely unable to relate to it even in an abstract way.
FTFY, Vox. Seriously, the guy's obviously not using the full capacity of his intellect if he doesn't understand why attacking a mentally ill person on the basis of their condition is wrong. He's just a complete fucking prick, and kudos to Clark for calling this idiot out on his bad behaviour.
I find it sad that your word (might I even call it a promise?) to a friend means so little to you that you chose to discard it because you do not feel like it upholding it anymore…
What marked VD as a dipshit to me was his attack on Ken. That was beyond the pale. Too bad. I could have liked a writer who refuses to write bedroom role play scenarios for the Nilesen-Haydens and their SJW/Tumblerina readership.
IMO, Beale's post didn't warrant any raining down of hellfire. It wasn't an attack on Ken. It was just some idiotic grandstanding. That said, Clark's response sucked, but the enemy of your enemy is your friend, I suppose, so I understand why Clark would want to be in good standing with Beale. That said, it's sad that Clark chooses his hangups with SJWs (which are largely imaginary) over his friendship with Ken (which is real).
Vox Day is an interesting personality – a person who is, intentionally, a huge jerk. It's not an accident – it's the whole POINT. And yes, he uses logic and facts – he also uses a lot of anti-facts. The height argument is a great one – it sounds true (and probably is), and is so ingermane to the REAL argument that nobody would bother looking it up. But it's believable, so it leads one naturally to assume that the NEXT 'fact' cited is true too – great rhetorical technique. Doesn't make the man RIGHT – he'd have to actually be right for that. But his anti-facts LOOK accurate, since they're surrounded by real facts, and it takes a bit of noticing to realize that the arguments that matter are supported by anti-facts, while the arguments that don't matter are supported by true stuff. Heck, the guy has even rationalized anti-intellectualism as a sort of intellectualism to himself. He, after all, is smarter than almost any scientist on earth, via a claimed IQ of 135 (which means almost nothing, in reality), and as such his gut instinct is MUCH more reliable than the expert opinion of highly trained people. Why, THEY might not be aware of recent advances in their fields, and as such, by default you should trust the professional jerk with the high IQ. So you know: sort of impressive there – the ultra-conservative credo on why experts should not ever be trusted, backed up by a number that doesn't mean what he seems to want it to mean. Remember that IQ tests are generally not particularly difficult – at best, IQ measures what you COULD learn, should you so choose, and how easy that will be for you. Vox chooses to assume that, by virtue of having not chosen to learn a thing, he knows more about it than somebody who did – even though, statistically, those somebodies have IQs every bit as high as his.
As for god and science: the two are, quite frankly, not mutually incompatible. Now, god is incompatible with the scientific METHOD – when you've got an entity/phenomenon which is, these days, defined as being literally outside of human understanding, then a mechanism which focuses upon making observations and coming to understand the system being observed will never find it. God cannot be identified/investigated/described/understood via the scientific method, because god cannot be identified/investigated/described/understood at ALL, except via faith.
But science itself? Science is, simply, the current understanding of reality as best we can see. If god exists, and can ever be bothered to make him/herself known to us in a measurable way, then by definition that becomes part of the total science. Similarly, you might quote Occam's Razor – the simplest answer tends to be most correct – and realize that god is NEVER the simplest answer, because it's always one level further abstraction. You get to your total answer and then add 'and god made it all happen'. But that does not make god automatically a lie – after all, the half people always leave out of the razor is that it's the simplest explanation THAT EXPLAINS EVERYTHING OBSERVED that's usually right. IF god can be observed, someday, then it'll have to be included in rational explanations.
But anyways – mental diseases in general are horrible, because you often can't 'think' past them – your brain is the organ that isn't cooperating. It's hard to feel hope when your brain chemicals are refusing to let you admit that hope exists. Is it less lethal than cancer? Yes, if you are kept away from sharp objects. Doesn't make it easy, by any stretch of the imagination.
That Vox chooses to shoot insults at somebody suffering from a disease, and to make 'suggestions' about how that person should live in the exact same space that he claims to be totally unable to understand said person re: said disease, says all that really needs to be said about Vox. That Clark chooses to support him as a reasonable person, particularly following such a post, says all that one need know about Clark.
Vox Day is a two-bit bitch ass coward. The kind of MMA poseur who has become too frequent since it became popular.
Labels are harmful to discussion.
That's Clark for you.
Again, that's Clark for you. His ideology idee fixes are far more important to him than anything else, as we've seen in his previous posts.
The latest in a multi-part series wherein Clark ever-so-slowly comes to terms with that old "enemy of my enemy" phrase.
FWIW an IQ of 135 isn't all that, even if it does map usefully to reality. Having done a (real, not Internet) test for ADHD & other shit during a prolonged set of oh-so-not-fun weekly visits to the psychiatrist: I hit 131-133 whilst medicated out of my gourd and hallucinating*. I'm no scientist, heck I'm an idiot computer monkey in an ad agency, and even *I* know plenty of folks who are way brighter than I am. Boasting about being some sort of genius with that score is weak. It also says quite a bit about the people one surrounds themselves with if that boast means anything…
VD, which is a fantastically apt acronym, isn't stupid but he is an arsehole of note. To be honest, though, having a look at his old man's record** I'm not surprised that his offspring turned out that way. If he wasn't so unpleasant I'd feel a bit sorry for him!
* Not a boast, just making the point that the number means bugger all.
** God vs taxes. Never a good look.
Mike A., impresses me! The joke on SJWs is they go back and forth between obsessing over race and denying that race exists. Most SJWs however, aren't able to do both simultaneously.
Behold Mike A. has produced much material both obsessing over race and denying that race exists *in the same thread*!!!
F. Scott Fitzgerald said, "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function."
Ladies and gentleman, are we not blessed that the gifted Mike A. honors us with these great feats of intellect?
I'd never heard of Vox Day or Thomas Beale before I read the post by Clark on Saturday. I clicked over to the post on Beale's site to see what the fuss was about, and a quick read through quickly disabused me of the idea that Beale may have any redeeming features.
Amongst the things that caught my eye was him saying that psychological triggers are there in order to be pulled (I'm paraphrasing, because I don't have any remote desire to go to his site again even for the length of time it would take to find the quote and copy/paste it), being mockingly amused at the idea of rape victims being driven to a psychological break, and other such offensive trite. Basically the idea that he finds amusement at the idea of being able to harm people mental/emotionally to the point of destroying them.
I'm with Ken on the idea that people shouldn't be protected from things that annoy or upset them, but the idea of going out of your way to cause psychological damage to people, for what boils down essentially to the "lolz" of it, is abhorrently repulsive to me. If you have to say the occasional thing that hurts or is a hard truth to make a point, that is life. If you feel the need to go out of your way to find a way to attack someone's mental health (and I don't mean calling someone crazy, but actively trying to make them crazy or depressed) because they disagree with you, are saying something that you disagree with, or you just generally don't like them whatever grouping of people they are in, then whatever arguments you have are invalidated. These are the sorts of things that people who wish to limit the First Amendment like to quote because it really is indefensible vitriol, even though, like Ken, I don't feel that should invalidate his right to say it. The fact that he has followers that cheerfully praise him for this vitriol is a problematic look at the depths of human expression on the internet.
As far as I'm concerned he is a monster and while he has not done anything illegal as far as this is concerned (though from comments above by Castaigne, sounds like he is at least suspected of other illegal acts), he is at the very minimum an immoral person, an unethical person, and not anyone that I want to given any credence to by reading his books, blogs, or any other platform that he disgraces with his presence. I don't care if he presents ideas that are intriguing or thought out (though from the comments above the majority of his arguments are intellectually disingenuous), the way that he presents himself and his arguments should lead to him being routinely ignored and shunned by anyone with a hint of sanity in favor of someone that can make coherent argument without the hatred, vitriol and offense. Though I have not, and don't expect to ever, read directly any of his font of 'wisdom', from the comments above it seems he subscribes heavily to the ideal of truthiness.
Patrick, my respect for you has plummeted. Sure, your damned him with faint praise, but the fact that you, as a doctor, who, in theory, swore a Hippocratic Oath, feel a need or desire to defend his rhetoric at all says a lot about your moral fortitude and hypocrisy. The fact that you did so instead of defending your friend, who is virtuous on many levels and has been there when you've needed him personally, is atrocious friendship. The fact that Ken has just shrugged it off says a lot about him. You should really spend some thought on that.
If race doesn't exist, someone needs to inform the President, quick! There must be 10,000 laws that relate to race on the Federal books alone. But that's something that doesn't exist! Won't someone please tell him? I think he needs to know!
And there is this huckster named Henry Louis Gates, friend of the President actually, that goes around telling people exactly what percent of each race they are, based on something he calls "DNA". This scam artist is even getting taxpayer funds (grants for "research") to run his scams. He has defrauded large numbers of famous people. This needs to stop.
The SJWs? Do they actually exist? Probably, in some fashion, but who are they really? Could it be that US society's attitudes and tastes have changed away from Mr Beale's?
Have the "SJWs" had any *direct* influence on the past Hugo awards? No, of course not. Anyone who's looked at how the awards operate would know that. Mr Beale starts with a demonstrably false premise and builds from there. (Hugo Awards are nominated and voted on by the members of the current year's World Science Fiction Convention. There is no selection committee and there are reasonably clear eligibility rules. If the members don't like certain books, they don't vote for them. Pretty simple.)
Have "SJWs" had an indirect influence on the Hugos? Maybe… editors at the major publishers, if they be considered SJWs, do, but much of their job is to select and publish profitable fiction (a purely Capitalistic motive). I can't see how Mr Beale and others can disagree with that. The apparent fact that the overall public doesn't buy the same works as he does does not an actual conspiracy make (correlation/causality and all that), OTOH I think he's done a good job of manufacturing one.
And as balance to some of his arguments about the wrong type of fiction being nominated, it's been observed by others that many of the last few year's nominees for best movie have been the sort of hard science fiction that he promotes. Is that SJWs at work, too?
Wait, wait, wait … Ken leans left? Are you sure? I've been reading Popehat for years and I was dead sure he leaned right. Seriously.
As an anarchist it is often very hard to figure out this left/right stuff and who is where.
@ Dan Weber: Oh, yeah? Tell that to someone who has the labels white, male, Autistic, and gay (in order of obviousness), and who isn't ashamed of any of them. And Vox Day is a two-bit ass coward (I won't call him a bitch on the basis that it's an insult to female dogs to do so).
z! wrote:
When people following the exactly same rules achieved a different outcome, choosing books that perhaps SJWs might not have chosen, the otherworldly screams from SJWs encircled the globe. SJWs managed to get major media worldwide to report that, sadly, the world just ended and everybody died. Beale doesn't have that power. If anything, he and others tricked them into proclaiming their own insanity. Guys frothing at the mouth at him here and elsewhere are participants in their own pranking. I tell my kids, don't react and then the teasing won't be fun.
Since when does Ken care what someone like Beale thinks/says about him? Positing that he does not, I'd say Clark's post was a troll.
SJW is a derisive term for flat-chested (even when obese) hairy-legged lesbians with a patriarchy fixation, I think. Although, at Reddit, hardly a right-wing stronghold, we prefer to call them Tumblrinas.
— How many SJWs does it take to change a lightbulb?
— That you think that it's the lighbulb which needs to change and not society is the problem.
— Why did the Tumblrina go to the doctor?
— She did not! Tumblrina's don't a need a doctor to tell them that they are suffering from PTSD brought on by the oppressive patriarchy.
Stuff like that.
Race exists as a social construct, but it's meaningless from a biological perspective.
It's all relative. Everyone has a different idea of where the center is.
TPR Jones said: "Wait, wait, wait … Ken leans left? Are you sure? I've been reading Popehat for years and I was dead sure he leaned right. Seriously."
That's what's called "the sweet spot."
Errrr…. race really, really isn't irrelevant from a biological perspective. Beyond the most obvious aspects (general bone structure, skin pigment concentration, etc.), there are other aspects worth considering. Some races have much higher incidence rates of lactose intolerance than others – this is important when considering school lunch menus, as just a single example. Some diseases show much higher incidence, and lethality, rates in one race or another.
It is true that race is very important as a social construct. However, it IS meaningful from a biological perspective. It is both descriptive and predictive of biological trends – two things with a great deal of meaning to them.
There are people way better-qualified to discuss this than I am. Honestly, chances are I'm already misrepresenting the argument about its genetic insignificance.
My goal was to make the distinction between race as a social construct and race as a genetic/biological construct, to illustrate how someone might argue that it exists and doesn't exist at the same time.
Ok, fair enough – and this is where Watson got in some trouble, claiming that we don't KNOW if race X is the same intelligence as race Y. And, well, to the best of my knowledge, that's true – nobody's ACTUALLY run that experiment. IQ tests don't count, as standardized tests in general are so horribly culture-centric that they can only really be used in fairly limited contexts (and even then, IQ is so little of what makes up intelligence that it results in, say, people like Vox claiming that having an IQ of 135 counts as being smart, even while providing huge amounts of data indicating that the opposite claim was true). The big problem Watson had (other than foot-in-mouth disease) was not realizing that the null hypothesis is that race does NOT have an impact on intelligence (or anything else).
Once you get past the descriptive/definitional stuff, the assumption is ALWAYS that there's no effect, and your job is to prove it exists if that's what you want to be able to say. So, with no studies available (that I know of – if one does exist, I'd love to see it), the smart assumption is that there is no significant/meaningful difference in intelligence across races.
But yes, your point IS valid – the stuff that usually gets pinned on race from a social context (income/culture/etc.) is not generally predicted by DNA. Meanwhile, the actual biological differences that can generally be attributed to race don't seem to be causative for most of the social differences between races. Though even that's a simplification – take the lactose intolerance. Milk is served with school lunch, which is frankly much cheaper than getting equal nutrition packing a lunch. So asian kids are getting these little milk boxes, since that is what schools serve at lunch – little milk boxes. And THEY don't know what lactose intolerance is, after all, they're just kids. But it does mean they have a higher chance than, say, the white kids, to spend the rest of the day a bit ill, which will make lectures hard to learn from. This probably pops up in social situations downstream at SOME point – but cause and effect are hard to nail down in social science in cases like this.
@Greg:
Um. Greg. I think you should have another look at the name of the author of this particular post.
@nk
Wow, congratulations, nk. I think that's the most misogyny that I've seen packed into that few words. You've thoroughly Poed me, as, even with the light bulb jokes, I can't tell if this is sincerity or satire. Well done.
"Popehat.com is a civil liberties blog, and because Ken is fashionably, but discretely, left of center, the entire tone of the blog and of the readership averages left of center." Wait, what? Jeez, I really must be a far left red; I always had Popehat firmly down on my mental list of conservative blogs.
Sweet, you just defined "SJW" out of existence. I always thought this "culture war" was a product of the land of imagination, and you have confirmed it.
Clark is simply mistaken about Beale. Beale is petty, vindictive and irrational and the idea that anyone would be surprised that Beale attacked Ken on the basis of Ken's honest post about depression is in itself surprising. Beale views his disagreements with Ken as a battle that Beale will pursue to an inevitable end game where Beale "finished" Ken. As well, anyone that routinely uses "Social Justice Warrior" in the pejorative and plots to bring about their downfall is almost universally unhinged. It's one thing to critique and even mock the malformed notions of freedom of speech and the need for "safe places" so as to never endure a countering opinion. It's another to blither on as would a super-villian and attribute power, influence and control to "SJWs" out of all proportion to their actual power and influence. It's no coincidence that those most ready to do battle with the evil Social Justice Warrior scourge are white males with women issues. It's also funny that Rational Wiki is denigrated even tho Beale actually guilty of the claims made against him. Pretending he's a performance artist does nothing to ameliorate Beale's deplorable personality.
Right, being elected a Fellow of the Royal Society is a clear indicator of a career quickly circling the drain.
@Nick:
I think the fact that rightwingers consider a civil liberties blog to be, by default, left-wing says more about rightwing ideology than leftwing ideology.
You're confused. Race doesn't have a scientific meaning. It's obviously a colossally important sociological phenomenon.
What part of this is hard to understand?
@King Squirrel: I've read Vance's Dying Earth stories. The character, Cugel 'the Clever" is a wonderful example of Dunning-Krueger at work–his title is self-bestowed, and he's really rather a fool..
Huh. Poor Vox. All that Scalzi money must be chapping his hide.
@GuestPoster
Yeah, there's absolutely a link between geographic ancestry and the frequency of specific alleles. The thing is, those links don't align with categories like black/white/Asian; the way we draw lines around racial 'groups' is entirely unscientific and arbitrary.
So yeah, if you wan to talk about the higher rate of keloidal atypicality in the Yoruba people, there's some interesting stuff there for sure. If you want to talk about 'black people,' no, that's a political category, not a scientific one.
So to agree with Annoyed from far above, I am now off to filter Popehat to remove Clark. Why?
1. Your assessment of Vox Day confirms that you are not worth reading if you actually thought VD was worthwhile.
2. You failed in your self proclaimed friendship with Ken big time.
2A. You failed to do as you said and defend Ken when VD did what he inevitably did. In fact, you asked for MORE from Ken, rather than defending him.
2B. Someone who claims friendship and claims willingness to take action but then does not is the absolute worst kind of friend. A cynical person might even think you did this on purpose so you could see if Ken falls for your lies and laughs when he does.
Ok, the frothing obsession was pretty funny at first. Then it was a little sad.
Now I'm worried about you all.
Why is it that anytime some white jerk (Beale, Dickinson) comes along Clark proclaims him an extraordinarily brilliant and subtle performance artist? I often wonder whether it's Clark that's the performance artist, although I do often learn from his posts.
@ Richard
May 26, 2015 at 1:18 pm
Yes, I am a horrible misogynist, but in this particular instance I am only relating my understanding of how SJWs/Tumblrinas are viewed by people who derisively call them that and make jokes about them. Radical feminists or feminazis seem at times appropriate appellations too depending on the context.
I haven't read any Vox, and I'm not going to, because it doesn't seem like something I'd enjoy. I'm going to base my analysis of him purely off Clark's post.
The Internet worships intelligence and articulacy because they're particularly effective in this medium. Unfortunately, this means that they're often mistaken for a standalone set of virtues, particularly when the bearer's beliefs align with your own. Being intelligent doesn't keep you from being bigoted. Being articulate doesn't keep you from being petulant. This seems to be your mistake, Clark.
@Dragoness Electric
I'd say that's a pretty darn acurate thumbnail of the character. He definitely would not be a fun and interesting *person* but as a character he works well – and (just perhaps) provides a certain additional appeal to readers who might identify a little too closely with him.
Mike A get snookered by Lewtonin's fallacy and then wants to lecture others on Dunning-Kruger. lol
Indeed, no one could successfully link a physical attribute like, say, skin color to race.
Jinglepocket humbly notes on race,
"A Family Tree in Every Gene" by Armand Leroi in the New York Times (3/14/2005) is a good place to start
Leroi writes
You could do worse than Razib Khan, a Bangladeshi American who knows more on this topic than anyone on this thread, no doubt. A word of caution, though. If your mental health depends on your believing race doesn't actually exist, then don't follow these links. Better that you sleep restfully.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2013/05/why-race-as-a-biological-construct-matters/
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2011/11/on-structure-variation-and-race/
Long time reader, (pretty sure) first time poster. I'll be brief.
Ken, Clark is not your friend. This is not a blind spot. This is Clark having himself a good ol' fashioned ideological circlejerk with Beale at your expense.
You've done yourself, your readers, and others who suffer from depression a huge disservice in allowing Clark to make this blog entry.
"…and still no sign of Clark" The Dragonmum said. A flicker of flame was barely visible behind the puff of smoke that escaped with her words. She flicked her talons thoughtfully as she knocked an undersized D20 off her favorite chest of baubles. "Curious. I thought he'd have shown his face and made his apologies by now. Perhaps he sees the monster of his creation and it shames him." Settling a bit more comfortably into the heart of her hoard, she put that thought aside and went to look for cat gifs and Earthporn on reddit.
Well. I said I check out Popehat again. But it won't be to read the comments. Oy. With a side order of Vey. The dread ilk may sometimes be whack jobs but at least they aren't tedious posers.
Bravo to "Clark" (my apolgies, I don't have a more polite form of address. I'll remedy if I comment again) for standing up for a friend and an an opponent. That's courage.
As for Ken's "bravery" – if you honestly want to know what a sincere desire to expose your failings and hardships to the world looks like, go to epbot.com and search her site for anxiety. You know what you won't find? Confrontation or using one's mental disabilities as a shield to get a pass on 'net fights.
"brave" is admitting to your boss that your PPD
Khreppe. My apolgies: one mis-key and no edit function equals a comment cut off mid-sentence. Never mind.
If you're posting for a left wing audience you get no points for sharing any hardship: have you got non-neurotypical wiring, differently-abled (mental) health, gender-queer, or some form of melanin-enhanced "other-ness" to boast of? It's a brag. It's a plea for a get-out-of-(I really stepped in it, didn't I?)-jail free card, or a way to get more $$$$.
If you're truly on the side of the angels, trying to share some hell you've been through to help fellow sufferers; if you're posting on Victims 'R Us, you've got a hell of a steep cynical hill to climb. And you've no-one to blame but yourselves for this sorry state of affairs.
@ Tim!: To me, an SJW is someone who disregards the actual desires and opinions of the group they are fighting for, such as the not yet disabled feminists who have listed 'ableist' terms they think you shouldn't be allowed to use anymore. Lydia Brown (AutisticHoya) has actually lost some respect from me for the same offence, and it makes me want to do a list of 'ableist' words you can use with the definitions I created for them.
You know what you won't find here? Anything like that. Your implying that Ken is using this as a shield is totally made up, 100% out of whole cloth.
@Richard
Err…That was a clear case of thinking one name and typing another. Thanks for pointing it out. I obviously meant Clark.
@Dragonmum
The idea of Clark feeling shame is probably the most fantastical element of your passage in which you are a talking dragon. But he has responded! On Twitter. Here's the highlights:
(all from here)
So there you go. Everyone who dislikes or disagrees with Vox is dumb and just spewing about science they don't understand (but which Vox totally, intimately does), and they hate him for being such a maverick freethinker willing to follow the truth wherever it lies, even if it's uncomfortable for polite society!
I mean, it's definitely not because Vox is such a toxic asshole that even in Clark's gushing, he couldn't come up with any virtues other than "smart" and "successful". It's certainly not because he's so pointlessly cruel that even Clark acknowledged the charge and declined to defend him on it.
And above all, it's absolutely, positively not because Vox is wrong about anything he says. Or if he's wrong, it's not because of any flaws in his logic. And as we all know, reaching a logical conclusion working from false premises is the most intelligent way to be wrong. It barely even qualifies as "wrong" at all.
Who could fault Clark for standing by his widely despised e-acquaintance – who I'm sure is very polite to Clark – when the only people who object are such senseless, gibbering morons?
@King Squirrel: Yah, Cugel the Clever is also a classic example of the Trickster archetype, and I loves me some Trickster stories. I really enjoyed Vance's Cugel stories. But then, Trickster is often the Fool.
Wow, this is depressing.
@This Is A Guest: I see this sentiment often repeated throughout this comment section. I think we should know better than to presume to know the nature of Ken and Clark's relationship, and the consequences of this situation on it.
Thanks for the twitter update, @ModdeyDhoo.
I don't blame Beale for not engaging in this thread. After all, he has no obligation whatsoever to weigh in. He's not stupid. (Despicable, sure. But stupid? No.)
However, this is Clark's own OP!
Why the fuck is Clark not engaging in his own thread? Instead, he skulks off to Twitter? Clearly, Clark has no respect at all for the Popehat community, and *that* is the real problem as I see it.
It seems rather obvious that it's time for Clark to blog elsewhere. Not at all because he holds to some controversial positions, but because he holds no regard at all for the Popehat community.
If Clark thinks he's doing Ken any favors by staying, well, like the old saying goes… with friends like Clark, Ken doesn't need enemies.
ktward, I have no idea why you would think that Clark has little respect for the Popehat community.
I also think that when one consistently uses empirically false premises (even though they may derive validly from an axiomatic system using deductive logic), one cannot be considered a crisp thinker. Content and form a sound argument make.
@wolfefan Why is it that anytime some white jerk (Beale, Dickinson) comes along Clark proclaims him an extraordinarily brilliant and subtle performance artist?
Because his self proclaimed position as an aloof, amused, disinterested observer of the Eternal "team red vs team blue" Culture War is just a facile pretense for a guy who loves the current crop of angry straight white internet dudebros so much that he'll tie himself up in knots justifying his fawning admiration for a racist, misogynistic, gay-bashing white supremacist rape apologist?
Nah. It must be because he — unlike the "muddy thinkers" who comment here at Popehat — is one of the fortunate few who is smart enough to appreciate the Uncomfortable Truths those fine gentlemen so subtly convey
@Dan
I don't care. None of my opinions hinge on the nuances of genetic taxonomy.
My involvement in this discussion is limited to pointing out the distinction between race as a social construct, and race as a biological/genetic construct. I trust that, now that you know the difference, you will not be making that argument again.
@ktward:
> Why the fuck is Clark not engaging in his own thread?
Amusing – sometimes I engage a lot in comment thread on my own posts, and I've gotten attacked for that…and this time I don't, and now I'm "skulking".
Also amusing is the sense of entitlement you've got: that not only should I write for you, but when you castigate me I should be on call, no matter what's going on in my family life or career, and immediately snap to attention and rush to the stage so that you can throw rotten vegetables.
> After two days of comments, Ken has spoken directly to Clark: of loving friendship and, yes, disagreement. I've yet to see Clark speak directly to Ken.
I'm sorry you weren't CC-ed on our various emails or phone calls. I apologize for the error and will make sure to add three-way calling to my phone account so that this doesn't happen in the future.
> Clearly, Clark has no respect at all for the Popehat community, and *that* is the real problem as I see it.
First, yes, you're right – I find 3/4 or more of the comments at popehat stupid, shallow, tribalistic, angry, and silly. Yours are a perfect example.
So, absolutely true, I have no respect at all for 3/4 of the commenters here. Reading over the drivel above, should it be otherwise? Should I have respect for people who take time out of their day to read long posts and then leave comments like (paraphrase) "too long", "Clark is incapable of feeling shame", "I want an RSS feed of everyone but Clark", "Clark is a fascist", "Clark isn't as smart as he thinks he is", etc.
So, I'm not sure if scorning 3/4 of the people who leave comments here means that I have no respect for the "Popehat community". Perhaps so. For that matter, never having helped any of these people move into a house, or taken their kids on Scouting camp outs, or had them over for dinner, it doesn't seem like much of a community, properly defined, to me.
However, I blog – when I do – for the 1/4 of the commenters who leave constructive and interesting feedback, and for the those who do not comment at all but are perhaps interested in what I have to say.
@Marzipan:
> I have no idea why you would think that Clark has little respect for the Popehat community.
Thanks for the link.
As I point out above, yes, I have nothing but scorn for people like @ktward and others like him / her.
<— Wherein Clark finally brings the raining of hell-fire, just not against whom he promised.
@kilroy
LOL!
(but if you think that's hellfire, you're really going to be surprised when, someday, I crack open the oxygen tanks and dump bucket loads of powdered aluminum into the tornado)
We're definitely out here. Thanks for writing interesting things.
I just want an RSS to view Popehat without the comments.
;)
Thanks for proving my intuition that you guys existed, @bja990!
Promises, promises.
Everyone who says that Vox and his commentors are toxic is 100% right.
…the problem is that 95% of the people saying this are themselves toxic.
It's like the Iran Iraq war. Or a US presidential race.
@His Shadow
I agree with 2/3 of that ("petty, vindictive"). I thought that was clear from the blog post, which was triggered by Beale being petty and vindictive about a friend of mine.
Nice to see you finally show up, Clark. Not for me or anyone specifically, obviously, but for your own OP. I mean, if you weren't prepared to engage in your own thread, then why write an OP that, rather obviously, required engagement from you? You weren't too busy for twitter, turns out.
What a silly retort. It goes without saying that the only info we have to go on is your engagement in your own thread. No one's expecting to be included in your personal communications.
Look at that. We're basically in agreement, you and I. Go figure.
Since we agree, why exactly are you sticking around here? If 3/4 of Popehat's commentariat is, apparently, not deserving of your respect, why bother? I mean, it's not like you're changing any hearts and minds. Surely your efforts are better spent elsewhere. No?
@ktward: Allow me to interject as you are jumping the shark. While I'm not in agreement with Clark about pretty much anything, I am a fan of the more speech is good speech principle and having Clark here does add a lot of entertainment and discussion. Sure, he is almost always wrong, but wrong in such a way that greatly increases dialogue and you almost always learn something from his posts, just not usually what he means to teach you.
Clark screwed up, he's admitted it, and done his best to be clear with Ken, it isn't the commentators role to determine whether Ken is satisfied or not, or whether Clark is despicable for his actions and deserves only scorn and to be tossed out with the rubbish. Popehat wouldn't be the same without the delightful rants from Clark and I support his continued illogical screeds.
@Clark
I'm just wondering. What other people that want to criminalize homosexuality are we not allowed to think are stupid without being labeled as ignorant or dishonest by you? Are we for example allowed to think David Duke is stupid without you calling us ignorant or dishonest? Are there no authoritarian right wing ideas out there that are so horrible that we're allowed to think the people holding them are stupid and lazy thinkers? You're a really awful pseudo-intellectual who needs to spend less time on your computer obsessing over "SJWs". Pretty much everyone here have been more polite to you than the ideas you support in declaring that it's simply wrong to call Vox Day stupid, which he is. There's nothing intelligent, funny, interesting, insightful or clever about Vox Day's support of Breivik, his advocacy for criminalizing homosexuality, or any of his other vile positions. They're stupid and they're the thoughts of a stupid person.
@Gunnar
> I'm just wondering. What other people that want to criminalize homosexuality are we not allowed to think are stupid without being labeled as ignorant or dishonest by you?
Stupid is not the same as factually incorrect or morally wrong.
I see nothing about the proposal "let's outlaw homosexuality" (or, for that matter, "let's outlaw heterosexuality") that necesarilly implies poor reasoning skill.
It does imply axioms that I think are incorrect, and it does imply a moral code that is not my own.
So if someone labelled a person who says "let's outlaw ____sexuality" as necessarilly stupid, I would find that argument flawed, and I would consider the person making it to be ignorant of the distinctions between intelligence, factual correctness, and moral correctness.
Does that make sense?
I know absolutely nothing about David Duke. If you've got reason to believe that he's bad at cognition – as opposed to, say, merely having different axioms – feel free to call him stupid. But if you have no such evidence, then you probably want to pick a better insult and call him "evil", or "confused".
There are no ideas, right-wing, left-wing, or other wing, that are so horrible that you can call the people who hold that stupid, because "horrible" is not a synonym for "stupid".
I think you're misusing that term in exactly the same way you're misusing "stupid".
(This is a case of the pot calling the kettle disestablishmentarian. By which I mean: crack a dictionary, dude, because you're embarassing yourself.)
I can parse a few clauses in that sentence, and I disagree with them ("Vox Day is stupid"), but the sentence as a whole is a mystery to me. What are you trying to say?
You continue to use "stupid" as a synonym for "evil", which it is not.
Your rant here says a lot more about you and your mode of debate than it does about Vox and his.
For the sake of argument, let's say I agree with this quixotic statement. Clark, in your magical estimation, how do we identify the non-toxic people? Near as I can tell, the only peeps you believe are non-toxic are the few who, for whatever reasons, understand your particular mumbo jumbo.
Whatever.
The problem I find, with you as a front-pager, is that you demonstrate virtually no tolerance for anyone who disagrees with you. It's not that you're incapable of understanding other points of view, but you are clearly unwilling to engage with anyone who disagrees with you sans ad hom and deflection. So really, maybe Popehat is no longer the best fit for you since, to your own admission, 3/4 of Popehat's readership do not warrant your respect.
That said, obviously Ken's the only person who can truly determine whether or not Popehat remains a good fit for you. I respect his decisions, as I'm sure everyone does. Including the 3/4 of us you don't respect.
Clark shows understanding of and tolerance for someone he disagrees with – so clearly he has no tolerance.
ktward and Clark "basically in agreement" about 3/4 of commentators… so Clark should leave.
pft. weak sauce.
What disturbs me about this post isn't that Clark is defending Vox (I'm not quite sure who that is, except another internet tough guy of some kind), but that he promised to go to bat for his friend and then, when the occasion came, he backed out. It's especially disappointing that this instance involves a heart-felt post about the importance of support when fighting depression.
Ken doesn't need your help, of course, and this criticism isn't based on him needing help. But when a friend of mine promises to support me and then decides that he'd rather praise the guy who has been dumping on me, I'd start wondering whether I should continue to call him a friend.
Clark's maxims may differ.
@ktward
Clark's most admirable trait (in my opinion) is his willingness to hear all points of view and consider all arguments. It is the main reason I enjoy reading his stuff, in spite of the instances where I disagree with him.
I've never seen Clark refuse to speak/debate with someone because they think differently than him, but I've seen him engage with people of very different beliefs countless times.
Thus, I must conclude that you are completely wrong. Also, I can't speak for Clark, but I imagine he would tell you that non-toxic people are those who can debate without resorting to self-righteous rage and attacks. He has mad respect for logic, not so much for emotion-based reasoning.
@Owen
Owen,
This is an objection that some other people have raised, and it's one I take seriously.
I strive, as much as or more than anyone I know, to honor all of my promises, and the idea that I broke a promise – and broke it lightly – is a painful one.
I hate to dive into the definition of word (lest one seem to be quibbling, Clinton like, about the definition of "sex", or, worse yet, "is").
And yet, I must, because that's what the entire discussion hinges on.
If I tell you "I'll be at the bus station at 5pm, and I'll pick you up at the west entrance", and then I decide that I'd rather stay home, have I broken a promise?
Absolutely.
If I tell you "I'm going to head to the bookstore tomorrow, grab a coffee by myself, and buy the new Neal Stephenson book", and then tomorrow I decide that I'd rather stay home, have I broken a promise?
Absolutely not (I believe).
The difference?
In the former case we negotiated an agreement between two parties, where I would perform some action, and you would take some other action (be at the bus stop, and – crucially – not ask some other friend for a ride) because you had faith in my pledge.
In the latter case I merely told you a story about my current intentions, employing the customary vernacular approach of not fully specifying everything the way a Heinleinian Fair Witness. I did not specify that I would go to the bookstore tomorrow only if (a) my car worked, (b) I had no health emergencies, (c) my bank account was not depleted by Russian hackers, (d) I did not get in a traffic accident on the way there… all the way to (z) if I felt like it.
In my particular case, after the fact, I can absolutely see how someone who was not present in the conversation, and thus not privy to purpose of the conversation, the emotional tone of it, the context of the previous conversations, the context of the previous respondants in the thread, etc. could mistake a "tale about intentions" for a "negotiated agreement".
…so I'm not surprised that you read the events this way. I am saddened, though.
I'm doing just fine, thank you. Being sneered at by Vox, Roosh, and Nero is actually kind of tingly. I don't require help.
I don't think that Vox is stupid. He may, however, be an excellent example of the notion that intelligence is of limited utility.
An idea is not smart because a smart person has it. It is not dumb because a dumb person has it.
Similarly, an idea is neither smart nor dumb, nor bad or good, simply because it is mainstream or non-mainstream.
I don't care for the notion that I should think X because everybody thinks X. Nor do I care for the idea that if somebody thinks Y instead, they must necessarily be innovative, or bold, or insightful, or clever. It ain't necessarily so.
@Kilroy
Wait. Has Clark admitted it? As far as I can tell he hasn't. Certainly not on this, his own thread. Then again, maybe we're not talking about the same thing, wrt admissions.
Anyhoo, I really am glad to see Clark finally engage on his own goddam thread. In a perfect world I suppose I'd hope to seem him less defensive/reactive and weirdly reductive, but then again, it's Clark. My expectations are probably unreasonable.
No matter. I'm outta here. The only thing I wanted was for Clark to [finally] engage on his own post. Now that he's here, there are plenty of y'all who echo my own thoughts- no need for me to further comment. (It's kind of sad that a lot of you apparently respect Clark while he does not, in fact, return that respect. But you're absolutely correct- free speech requires neither agreement nor respect.)
@Clark
from your link about the definition of "pseudo-intellectual":
1. A person who affects proficiency in scholarly and artistic pursuits whilst lacking any in-depth knowledge or critical understanding of such topics.
If your post from a while back attempting to link the Kulturkampf in 19th century Germany to the "culture wars" in the U.S. today is anything to go by, I would argue you fit the bill, as you are seemingly lacking any in-depth knowledge or understanding of German history. I don't think there is anything wrong in not having in-depth knowledge of German history per se (unless you're German, in which case shame on you), but then you shouldn't be making grand pronouncements on the subject.
@ktward I took the title of the post to be an admission of screwing up, but that is just my interpretation since in my line of work, making a wrong prediction can be a pretty bad screw up.
Never agreed with Clark but the thing I see is that he responds to people in the same way they talk to him.
ktward is a perfect example of why Clark doesn't respect 3/4 of the commenters here. She not only demanded that he come engaged them but by the looks of her last comment, she is proud that apparently she "made" him come back and engage.
Thus a hero has been born, she doesn't even need to post anymore since she is the reason Clark came back…… and then they wonder why he doesn't care about them or takes them seriously.
@Clark
I already explained earlier how Vox Day is poor at reasoning whenever he opens his mouth about anything scientific too and believes things that go against established scientific theory using objectively unscientific arguments. He's an "anti-materialist" as he calls himself. You claimed he's a highly logical person but this as I've said is highly illogical and let's say stupid. But it seems you won't accept that there are objective facts out there that he isn't grasping either. I'm not confusing stupid with evil. His fascist views go well with this kind of anti-scientific nonsense he's peddling of course. You see a lot of the same from other right wing authoritarians throughout history. Maybe I could concede that a "smart" person could hold these beliefs if he got all the other observable facts right, but that isn't exactly the case here. He shows an extremely poor understanding of the philosophy of science time and time again. Take this argument he made for example http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/03/08/ignorance-is-blitz/#.VWYgUUbQhSA. This is an objectively wrong thing he claimed. And it shows a poor understanding of logic. Vox Day is the dunning-kruger effect on overload.
@Ken White
I'm not sure how exactly you're reading what I'm saying. I would never suggest that wanting to ban homosexuality is stupid just because it's non mainstream. It's stupid because we have information now to understand what a bad idea it is and how it would affect society. It shows a lack of both sociological and emotional intelligence. If we can't agree that wanting to ban homosexuality is a stupid idea then I guess there is no such thing as a stupid idea and the only way we're allowed to think someone is dumb is if they can't do logic on the most basic of levels and claims 1+1=1 or something. Which is convenient because Vox Day fails in the most basic ways all the time when he talks logic and science too.
Anyway I'm done here. It's clear we won't agree on this.
There's tendency for people to go a little crazy when they first find out they have a high IQ. They suddenly think all their thoughts are deep, all their opinions are unassailable, and everything they do is justified by the fact that they're better than the people around them.
A lot of intelligent people are fucking idiots.
@Jinglepocket: a lot of intelligent people dream of fucking idiots, but usually end up just playing by themselves.
That's not the only significant difference. Another significant difference is that, in the first case, you've said that you would do something that has some personal value to me. In the second case, you've simply described your intention to do something that has no personal value to me.
(Add in some details: Stephenson is my close friend, and he is in a contest to see who can sell the most books in May, and tomorrow is May 31, and you know all these things, and I've asked you to buy his book. Now, I think you've made me a promise, and by not buying the book, you've broken it.)
I understand context matters, and if the context behind the tweet shows that it was clearly not something you were saying to show your support for Ken, then so be it. I didn't see the email, of course, or the preceding emails or surrounding tweets, so I can't know. But if it was something you said because you thought it the promised/predicted "hell-fire" would be valuable to Ken, then you made and broke a promise. Sorry!
(Whether the agreement contained a bargained-for exchange of consideration, or whether Ken acted to his detriment in reliance on your "prediction" are relevant to determine whether you made a promise that a court would enforce. Not whether there was a promise.)
Edit – misremembered the source of the "hell-fire" promise/prediction.
@Kilroy: Fortunately, most people eventually grow out of flashing their MENSA membership every time they feel uncomfortable.
As the only ways to think what Clark claims to think about Vox is true are to know very little about Vox or to be a creationist one's self, I guess we can conclude Clark's a creationist
@Gunnar
I've seen you assert it, but I haven't seen you explain it. It's a big comment thread; if you can link to an example I'm read it.
@Jinglepocket
Couldn't agree more. And a lot more of them are ethical troglodytes.
@Jinglepocket
I wish my experience bore this out. Alas, all I can say is that I grow out of hanging around with people who flash their MENSA membership.
@Careless
Poe's law strikes: I honestly don't know if Careless is a fool attacking me, or a clever snarkster attacking my foes.
"You jackass!" / "Well done", depending.
Jinglepocket wrote,
and then
Your earlier quote is way off. Your latter quote is getting better. Obviously race has both a social meaning and a biological/genetic aspect.
The thing is the biological/genetic aspect is the source of the variation in the first place. To call it meaningless is just nonsensical. See the Armand Leroi quote above. "Race is merely a shorthand that enables us to speak sensibly, though with no great precision, about genetic rather than cultural or political differences.
But it is a shorthand that seems to be needed." Rough? Lacking detail? Perhaps. But biological and genetic features give us the contours of the real world which we attempt, albeit sometimes roughly or incompletely, to describe using words like race.
The social construct of race comes from people responding to and reacting to biological and genetic reality.
SJWs need to be reminded of the Philip K. Dick quote, "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."
@guesting
If I truly am, as you say, "a perfect example of why Clark doesn't respect 3/4 of the commenters here", then you're probably not scoring points with Popehat regulars. I'm pretty sure I've never actually commented here before this thread.
Meanwhile, I am indeed glad that Clark finally decided to spend some time on his own thread. Not an unreasonable expectation, is it? His appearance of course has nothing at all to do with my few measly comments, but I have to admit your silly overreach gave me a good chuckle. Meanwhile, back in the land of reality, many of the loyal commentariat here — 3/4 of whom Clark doesn't respect — aren't impressed with the way Clark treated his real-time friend. Regardless of their opinion of Beale who is, obviously, supremely mean-spirited. (aka an asshole.)
Ahh, now a (more) reasonable turn of comment. Clark, I am glad that you can see that from the perspective of those who read and care about this blog, the information available to us (all of which came from you, so you can't blame us for biased selection) is easily interpreted as one about an individual being supportive of a friend's decision to share a personal story and hopefully help others…then promising one particular type of support in one particular situation and substantially failing to deliver.
Your analogy about bus stations and coffee and promises made to yourself vs. promises made to others is a valid point. However, you've invalidated your own analogy by specifying what you will do in ONE PARTICULAR CASE. Referring to one exact thing removes a statement from being in the realm of "customary vernacular approach of not fully specifying everything" as you put it. Nobody's expecting a Fair Witness, but specifying your intended response to a particular stimulus is not the same as generally stating your intentions.
To add to your analogy, this is more like "Bob, if it rains tomorrow, I'll bring umbrellas"…and then arriving at work with no umbrellas because you gave them to a celebrity on the way there instead. If they are your umbrellas, you had every right to do with them as you please. Maybe Bob knows you say this sort of thing all the time and brought his own in case you failed to do so. However, an observer who hears your original comment and then your follow-up "explanation" for the lack of umbrellas has no idea if this means Bob is currently ruining his clothes in the rain. To that observer…you look like a shit.
That's utterly leaving aside the question of WHO you gave the umbrella to instead. I agree, with Ken, if Theodore Beale disagreed with me, I'd take that as a sign that I was doing something right. I don't think he's "stupid"…that can be measured and he does not qualify. He is certainly proof of what a large, negative effect someone can have in the world through the application of intellect. I do find his logic faulty in places, perhaps some of which are due to my inability to see how a rational human being could consider "true" the axioms on which some of his arguments are based. I think his general impact on society is negative, and any good he has done to be far outweighed by his unpleasant actions, ugly words, and generally horrible personality.
Getting back to Popehat…I support Mr. Beale's freedom to say ignorant, obnoxious, offensive, and yes even unscientific things on his own platform. I don't follow him on twitter and don't read the cesspool he keeps as a website. I will do my best to ensure nothing I spend money on profits him, and I will continue to express my opinion that he is wrong about many facts, and so obnoxious in how he chooses to state his opinions that I choose not to listen unless and until he chooses to be civil.
So, Clark, next time you mention your intention to assist a friend in the event certain circumstances occur, and then they occur, and you in fact do nothing…maybe using the fact that you had the right to change your mind isn't the best defense. It is logically sound but morally suspect. You have the right to be a jerk, it's true. Even so, I would not have come to "wow, Clark's being a jerk" had your "excuse" not been a thinly veiled defense of someone who is, unequivocally and at all times, as far as I can tell, a really big jerk. Again, your right. Just hope you're not shocked it's lowered some opinions of you.
Why were you accusing Mike A of holding contradictory ideas if it's obvious that they're two separate things?
As to the rest of your post, I was being serious when I said I don't care about the biological argument. My political stances are the same whether or not biologists find racial distinctions to be a useful tool.
I just don't get the idea that VD is logical but just has unethical axioms. When he writes things like 'I'm smarter than most physicists and biologists, so you should take my statements about physics and biology more seriously than the scientific consensus on those subjects,' he's not just proceeding from different axioms; it's objectively terrible reasoning.
@Clark
You broke a promise to defend your friend. You said, 'if you post this blog on depression, and Vox Day attacks you, I will defend you.' Ken posted the blog. Vox Day attacked him. You said 'Meh, I can see merits in both sides and perhaps (but I'm not sure) maybe Ken started it.' You went back on a promise. That is a fact. Your political opinions are one thing, but that is really low. (But what would I know, I'm a 'SJW' so can be dismissed as irrelevant.)
I am actually forcing myself to refer to him by his given name because everytime someone uses the initials "VD" I see "Venereal Disease", and the idea of gonorrhea having a logical OR illogical argument makes me giggle.
MaxZ,
Honestly, did Vox really attack Ken? Or did Vox just use Ken's post to do a bit of chest thumping about how he can use Ken's mental illness against him, if he's provoked? If you ask me, it's the latter. If you asked me whether or not I think Clark broke his promise, I'd say no. However, what sucks about Clark's response is that he is throwing Ken under the same bus as Vox when he calls on both of them to stop being dicks. That a tendentious reading of Ken's previous actions toward Vox. Like Patrick said, only one of them is being a dick. It ain't Ken.
Perhaps I'm just someone whose one experience with Vox was seeing him humiliate himself writing creationist nonsense.
A distinction without a difference. Crikey.
Re: "Clark is incapable of shame" – fair enough, I don't know you. Consider the jab withdrawn, if that means anything.
Standing by Vox Day, championing him, making a case for why others should respect him – it's baffling to me. Are intelligent people so valuable to you, or so rare, that you're willing to put up with a vicious, venom-spraying bigot, just because his logic is valid?
But of course, that's a loaded question. I'm sure you don't see him that way. I just think that your assessment of him relies on selective reading and a hugely generous interpretation of his intent.
@Clark
Way back in the original post you appeared to be promoting the idea of a personal speech code. This led me to remember an older post of yours concerning Pax Dickinson. Back then, you appeared much more hesitant on such a proposition, while now you seem much rosier on the subject. Would you care to elaborate on this virtuous code?
(I was thinking of putting virtuous in scare quotes, but thought that would be dickish, so… kudos?)
Now to me, calling someone an asshole may be seen as both virtuous (justice) and un-virtuous (charity) with the deciding factor being the role of honesty in communication. Dishonest communication is entertaining, sure, but I just can't see it as virtuous communication. This is why I view trolls as fundamentally dishonest and therefore non-virtuous. And with trolls, I am including "performance artists" – I just don't see the dishonesty as excused by whatever "greater truth" said artist may or may not be trying to reach. I also rather expect you were engaging in such artistry since the only people I remember you describing in such terms were Beale, Pax Dickinson, and "The Paste Taster". Funny, sure, but not virtuous.
Now I could start citing scriptures and classical supports for this code of mine, but
1) I am not saying anyone else should follow it, much less have it thrust upon them
2) I'm what is euphemistically known as a "lapsed Catholic" so many of those supports would be dishonest.
So I will just say "I would not snare even an orc with a falsehood."
Unless I get too drunk… or am being a dick…
Question: thus far, have Vox Day's attacks on ken's mental illness remained confined to that post, or has he attacked ken on popehat or other forums for his mental illness when he couldn't win the fight by attacking his ideas?
What I think of clark's betrayal of his promise depends on the answer to that question.
(And clark cares what I think because I'm a pretty girl and even though he's happily married it flatters his ego to think that pretty girls think about him at all.)
ktward,
Silly me. All this time I had labored under the delusion that there were differences between threats and attacks. Now I see the light.
Can we please put this trope to bed? Vox commits all kinds of basic logical errors; like I mentioned above, the most egregious is his belief that because he's smarter than everyone else (repeatedly asserted without evidence), he knows more about every scientific field than the experts within that field. The belief that because he scored 150 (or whatever) on an IQ test (which we have no reason to believe, given his track record of lying about his accomplishments- he never fought in amateur or professional MMA, and what a sadly stereotypical lie that is) he is automatically endowed with extremely advanced knowledge in multiple fields is fundamentally irrational. It's the type of thing I believed when I was a very, very arrogant middle-schooler.
The people who think Vox is rational are mistaking assertions of intelligence and rationality, made in decently competent prose, for the real thing.
Also, he's a creationist. So there's that.
Clark:
I appreciate your response and the distinction that you drew. Let me briefly address why I think your response misses the mark.
This is not a fair comparison. The first example is an offer to a person that they are capable of relying on with respect to their actions. The second example is a statement of your intentions that has nothing to do with another person's actions. But the representation at issue here is clearly in the former category – you said that if Ken does X, and Vox does Y, you will do Z. That is a representation on which your friend is capable of relying. Whether he actually DID rely on it isn't relevant to whether you are morally/ethically culpable for repudiating your representation. It's relevant to whether your friend is harmed, and that can affect the degree of reprehensibility, but it doesn't change the fact of your repudiation.
If this had happened in a different context, off of the internet, I think you'd have a difficult time justifying it as (or comparing it to) 'a story about [your] intentions.' For example, if this had been (for ease of illustration) a schoolyard argument instead of an online spat, and you had told your friend:
That is a representation that your friend is capable of relying on. True, you are only stating your current intentions, not engaging in an arms length transaction with the advice of your attorneys, but there is an implicit promise inherent in saying "if you do X, and he does Y, I will do Z."
Now your friend has performed his part of the deal and, as he predicted, he was shit on for it. And your excuse for not acting now to support him is, well, that you don't want to. Or that you don't see your representation as sufficient enough to warrant being followed by you, which is essentially the same thing. (As an aside, if that is the case – if your statements of intention can be swept away by a wave of the hand after the fact – I wonder what worth your statements of intention are.)
Actually, it's worse than the illustration I wrote above. In this case, not only did you refuse to follow through with your promise, you constructively did the opposite. Instead of – what was it? – "rain[ing] hell-fire on him," you wrong a long screed praising him. So your friend told the whole class about his crippling depression, the bully mocked him, and you jumped up to explain how smart and clever the bully is. It is frankly incredible to me that you, as a person who holds himself out as an honest, self-reflective man, are incapable of recognizing the dishonesty and inequity in this.
But if your position is that you don't have to respect a representation you made as long as there is no explicit, bargained-for exchange, then more power to you. That's not the kind of conduct that I would expect from a friend, but maybe your friends are fine with being treated that way. At least now they know.
I just now read Clark's response to @Owen May 27, 2015 at 12:28 pm
So basically, this entire thread is a non-issue. Clark's convo with Ken only looked like a promise to have his back, but in fact it really wasn't.
Nevertheless, Clark feels really really bad that his convo with Ken looked like a promise to have Ken's back, even though it wasn't. Which is why he wrote such a long OP.
Sure. I get it now.
@Dan Gillson
Did you read Teddy Beale's post? I did. Maybe my status as a disabled person makes me over sensitive, but I would say it counted as an attack. (My impairment isn't around mental illness but same family.)
While I am a lefty, I have right wing friends and if I promised to have their back and a fellow commie said that kind of crap, I would strongly defend my friend. Even if my friend misunderstand the economic necessity of austerity. I like to believe that my right wing friends would show the same loyalty to me.
It would be different if Clark had told Ken beforehand that his support for Vox Day's political and social views meant he would have to be neutral. Instead Clark made a very strong statement that he would be on Ken's side. Clark betrayed his promise. That is a reality.
@curt:
This would be in keeping with most of the neoreactionaries on the internet.
—
@This Is A Guest:
Also agreed.
—
@Clark:
Considering he's a pal of a lot of your NRX friends, you might want to read up on that.
Typical anarcho-capitalism in action, weaseling out of the contract. If there's no consideration in the "contract" for me, I'm free to break whatever promises I've made with no regard to anything else because legalities. And people wonder why I don't trust them to do what they say.
The difference between you and me, Clark, is that in your place? I'd be raining hell-fire down anyway. It wouldn't matter to me whether I'm angry or sad; it doesn't make a difference. I promised my friend I would rain down hell-fire – and I keep my promises. I don't make promises I won't keep. To quote Gurney Halleck from Dune, “What has mood to do with it? You fight when the necessity arises—no matter the mood! Mood's a thing for cattle or making love or playing the baliset. It's not for fighting.” The same applies to promises you make to your friends.
Dan Gillson
May 27, 2015 at 3:16 pm
There's often very little light between threats and attacks when it comes to online rhetoric. Whatever. No one on this thread is suggesting Beale proves an existential threat to anyone, much less Ken, so I've no idea what your point is.
As to Clark supporting Vox Day/Ted Beale, can I suggest us lefties stop trying to talk him out of it? Clark has been given by Ken a very prominent pulpit for his views in Popehat. Many rational people will be brought in by Ken to this site and be tempted to take Clark seriously. If 'swing voters' go to Vox Day's site after Clarks enthusiastic approval then that is a good thing for our side in the culture wars. Vox Day is clearly vile. Clark associating himself with Vox Day smears Clark in VD's vileness. The more Clark says 'but Vox Day is a logical thinker' the more people doubt Clark.
Even most right-wingers despise Ted Beale. He is their Requires Hate. As much as we need to oppose Requires Hate, we need to let any thinker on their side who supports Vox Day to continue to damn themselves.
That said. Ken is a rightist, and yet manages to be a decent human being who is generally correct about things. Ken is a bigger danger to our SJW cabal's propaganda offensive than evil clowns like VD and those who defend him.
@owen:
Nothing dishonest at all, he simply changed his mind. As an honest man, he admitted this right up front. And as a self-reflective man, he explained to us all — at length and in detail — all of the pleasant and redeeming qualities of VD that led him to this change of mind
You have to remember Clark's overarching worldview, which essentially seems to boil down to "Absent a signed contract, do as you will shall be the whole of the law". Seems pretty messed up for a self professed Catholic, but at least the ethos is in the same pantheon.
You're wasting your time. When someone asks you "Do you have any examples of his supposed stupidity or bad logic?", the response "He's a creationist" is all that is necessary. Anyone who continues to purport that VD is smart, or logical, or even honest, in the face of that fact is either not interested in facts, logic, and reason, no matter their proclamations to the contrary, or they don't know what a creationist is.
@MaxZ
Careful, your sockpuppetry is showing.
@Ken in NJ
Clark made a promise in writing to Ken. In being permitted to continue to blog at Popehat Clark is receiving valuable consideration. IANAL (despite the Law Degree and UK professional qualifications) but could an argument for a valid contract be made? Of course, in this case, the obvious recourse would be to deny the consideration. Thing is Ken is an honourable and kind man, so will allow Clark to break a contract as well as his word. I suspect that Clark will be around to trumpet Clark's ethical superiority for some time to come.
ktward,
Put aside your intentional misreading of what I wrote and you'd have a better idea of what my point is. Oh, what the hell, I'll state it for you anyways: Vox didn't directly attack Ken's post or his struggles with depression. He threatened to use Ken's struggles with mental illness under the guise of pretending to provide helpful advice to Ken. Basically Vox was saying, you're weak, stay away. That's just not an attack.
I'm done here. The only reason I keep going is because I've bought into the Sunk Cost Fallacy. Ya'll who are commenting here should probably do the same.
@ktward
Apologies, I was trying for snark.
@Dan Gillson
My response to your views is that I feel that perhaps you really are a stupid and worthless individual doomed to inevitable failure in life.
Obviously, I am not attacking you here, I am just warning you to stay away from someone of my superior intellect. (Any similarity of phrasing – or direct quoting from – the Vox Day post is probably co-incidence.).
@Mike A.: I wasn't clear about it above, but no, Beale's logical prowess never impressed me much. I think the quote in the Bad Astronomy post Gunnar linked is a pretty good example of him bungling a logical argument.
ktward, it seems like you're reading insults into a joke by one of your fellow tribe.
Clark, I'm impressed you came back and argued your points again. You've certainly been set upon by folks who've had burrs up their butts that seem to be resistant to removal. I'm still curious: At what point do we treat a system's axioms (like VD's) as incomplete and thus unverifiable vs. simply representative of a series of beliefs with strongly set Bayesian priors on which many other beliefs depend?
From my understanding, the former can escape modification through data, though at the cost of being necessarily inconsistent. This notion may be an inappropriate generalization of Gödel's second incompleteness theorem beyond the mathematical context. Nevertheless, it seems that much of symbolic logic that can be used to express deductive truths is fundamentally mathematical, so it seems like that theorem would hold.
The latter can be modified, though it would likely require a boatload of data to ever do so. It also points the way toward using inductive logic instead of deductive logic in argumentation, which changes the rules of logical discourse.
In any case, translating axioms into premises from which deductive arguments can proceed represents a surprisingly messy proposition that poses real problems in the philosophy of science. Those problems are part of why argument over scientific "fact" rage.
@Marzipan.
Translate into an equation: 'I promised, you my friend, K, if attacked by person, VD, to defend you, but when VD attacked you I decided to remain neutral.' You seem dead clever, so it should be easy for you. Then you can turn the equation around to prove Clark was ethically right. I'm sure it is in your gift. What with you being a second Karl Popper and all.
@MaxZ
Yikes. My bad. In my defense, snark doesn't seem to be much of a thing around these parts, so I'm not expecting it. (I mean, it's not like y'all are the gents.)
@Marzipan
Are you one of those spammers, arbitrarily stringing words together? Because I'll be damned if I can actually make out a message in your garble.
@Dan Gillson
You haven't actually clarified your point for me, whatever it was, but okay.
@ktward, everything @Marzipan said were elements in a sound argument about geometry. We started it with talking about axioms and logical fallacy. Marzipan, I don't know what you do for a living, but you've read some great books or taken some good math courses.
However, the fact that this avenue of argument quickly becomes unintelligible to those who haven't studied it, and clearly devolves into a reductio ad absurdum to those who have, may be good evidence why ethics isn't actually a very good fit with geometry.
Clark, you're missing the point. You say:
You go on to say:
Now in the comments, you do a lot of name-calling, while simultaneously bashing others for name-calling and letting Vox off the hook when he does the same. I think it's funny, so I'll quote it, but it's not really relevant to my point.
My point is that you're missing everyone else's. What we're all saying is that with Vox, you're really missing the forest for the trees. "Sure, his views ('axioms') are noxious," you say. "But at least he proceeds from them honestly!
No! Maybe the threshold for obtaining your intellectual respect is a low one, but consistent and honest reasoning is the least I expect before publicly, even to friends, going around calling someone a "crisp thinker." Consistency isn't even the intellectual equivalent of making the trains run on time. It's more like making the trains run in the right direction.
Maybe Vox can turn a pretty phrase, and maybe he can close a syllogism such that his points flow clearly from premise to conclusion. But that's rhetoric and logic, and deployed towards noxious ends, it's sophistry, such that rewarding it is putting form over function.
What I suspect you're doing with Vox Day is engaging in something I like to call the "reddit fallacy":* contrarianism for its own sake. You pride yourself on respecting someone for their ideas, not their politics. Good for you! That's a sign of intellectual maturity! And one way it manifests is looking critically at people others are quick to dismiss as "non-PC."
You've taken that too far, though, and are assuming that contrarian views ("Vox isn't so bad") are perforce intellectually rigorous views. That's not the case. Sometimes the crowd is right. About Vox, they are.
* – Oh, and I just saw that you self-describe as an anarchocapitalist. This explains a lot.
@Clark:
If you wanted to reply to me, you would, which since you didn't means you didn't, which is perfectly fine (not that you need to give a crap, I'm just making clear that I don't have misconceptions on that score). I suppose I fall into the Unfortunate 3/4, which is a downer (said not at all with snark, I really do wish I wasn't).
But I'll say a thing again anyway: I'm still really confused about your reasoning in this situation. The quibbling over whether it was "really" an attack from other commenters doesn't help, because in your post you seem to accept that as true, which makes its real truth-value irrelevant to your reasoning. The contract thing that you brought up doesn't help, either, because I don't understand how the analogy holds contextually–I don't see how you equate your promise (or…claim? Or…statement of intention?) to Ken with the latter example rather than the former.
My favorite part of this thread is all the people saying "Ken is on the left!" and "No, Ken is on the right!"
I always thought of him as mostly libertarian. But now I'm pretty sure he shouldn't clarify, but instead be coy about the leftward/rightward tilt of his opinions, kind of the way the Simpsons would always dodge the question of where Springfield was.
By the way, I feel the need to say something I should have been very clear about before. Ken has stood with me through thick and thin, and supported me against evil people in an amazingly generous and steadfast manner. This Beale guy would turn me off with behavior like I saw in his post linked above, no matter who his target was — but to see him pull that childish stunt with Ken really says something negative about Beale's character. IMO, I don't need to see any more of Beale to know, from that post alone, that he is not the type of person I could ever admire. In fact, he repulses me, and anyone who reacts differently puzzles me. I don't see the need to get all self-righteous about others' reactions, but that's where I stand.
@Paige, it's probably the books. Math stopped at ordinary differential equations for me, and I've forgotten nearly all of that. I remember how well ODEs explained a lot of game theory and chaos theory concepts well, but solving for lowercase Greek deltas is well beyond me now. Even my basic trig and calculus need brushing up before I can use them. Nevertheless, VD claimed that he can maintain consistency because he hews closely to truth and logic, though consistency isn't guaranteed by logic or any set of axioms. Thus, I maintain he overstates his case substantially, and he stays inside his own head too much to confront the mountains of data that contradict his axioms, let alone his premises.
@ktward, here's the set of questions in simpler terms: Are belief systems truly impervious to data because they're incomplete and inconsistent? Or are they just severely fixed (but still possibly changeable) because of the strength of belief in them? In any case, VD's odious beliefs that appear inconsistent with the vast majority of well-collected and well-analyzed empirical data may maintain themselves because science is hard.
@MaxZ, an alternative formalism of Clark's syllogism:
S -> H
~H
~S
where S = "[VD] says shit" and
H = "I'll rain hell-fire on him."
We can see that Clark didn't rain ehll-fire on VD; thus, by modus tollens, we can conclude that…VD didn't say shit? In any case, I'm no second Popper; dude trusted deductive logic way too much for my taste.
That IS admittedly amusing – Ken, like most people, always struck me as on the left of center on some issues, right of center on others. I maintain, though, that it says more about the right than the left that folks assume that this is a left-wing blog by virtue of it being primarily about civil liberties, and that the commentariat is assumed to be left-wing by virtue of not treating a person worse for having a disease.
What amuses ME most is folks fighting over the validity of logic while just shrugging off the importance of valid axioms. After all – who CARES if your data is right, so long as you interpret it in a logically consistent manner?
As they say in the computer world – garbage in, garbage out. Doesn't matter how well VD, or anybody else, follows an algorithm, if they tell the algorithm that grass is purple, the moon is the size of Saturn, and that the average seal is born with 3 horns and 7 legs. When you start with input like that, logic is just a well defined way of ensuring that you arrive at the wrong answer.
@Paige
Geometry? [Sigh.]
Okay, sure. But y'all do realize this isn't a math problem, right? Understanding the human condition — relationships, public policy, governance — is a lot more complicated than math can solve all by itself.
Never thought about applying that particular idea to online interactions, but you're right, that perfectly sums up what I'm doing here. Thanks for the thought.
@Clark
I don't believe that I have any right to tell you what to do or who to be friends with. I also don't believe that anyone has a right to tell Ken who to be friends with either. What I am writing is pretty much how I took it, and I think others took it, based on your post without any further knowledge of forum posts, phonecalls, emails or whatever else.
Hey, do you think people will attack me if I write this.
No, and if they do I will go to bat for you.
Attack
I didn't think they would actually do that, I am more sad than angry though so what can I do. I wish my friends both wouldn't be dicks.
All of that pretty much comes from the top of the post to the first paragraph after the quotes, without that I, myself, would likely have taken it as a fairly interesting commentary on what happened between Ken and Vox and I think that section is where people have issues, not that I claim to speak for The People.
Do i think it was right or wrong? If someone had said to me they would go to bat for me and they didn't, I personally would be a touch upset, but I would also have done what I did assuming I was in it by myself anyway.
In terms of Vox, I am not left leaning, I am pretty much left in general though not radical no one should have anything I don't have left. I think, from a UK perspective, that the austerity measures were wrong and that everyone but the conservatives' rich donors are going to suffer in some way for the next five years. That's UK politics so not too relevant here, it does frame somewhat my opinion of Vox though. From what I have read on here, he is one of those who tells people what A Man should be, that's the kind of thing I don't take seriously outside the fact that such views are a part of why suicide is so high in men. He believes that most of the friends I have ever had are weak or should be criminalised and he has funded two parties that I believe are a cancer in the UK politics system, so you can see why I would probably think that he's not someone I would go against something I said to a friend for however intelligent he might or might not be. Again with the caveat I know next to nothing on what was actually said between Ken and yourself.
Anyhow that got quite lengthy and not all of it is relevant to this, it's just an outsider's/long time lurker's view on things. For the record I do enjoy reading your posts, I think you're wrong in quite a few points but that's where people agree to disagree.
Jinglepocket quoted me
and then said,
Both you and Mike A. said, "Race is a social construct." That phrase is totally wrong, no matter that it is commonly said on the left. Race is not something that society created. Race is language used to describe real biological and genetic variation, however imperfectly. Social meanings can be added on afterwards, but they are not the primary thing. Social meanings can be erased or rewritten but the contours of biological and genetic variation (i.e. what folks like Barack Obama and your grandmother mean by race) would still remain.
The only people who say "Race is a social construct" are leftist ideologues. Nobody outside of that group says that, because a casual look at the world around us is enough to make clear that the basis of race is very real.
Says the Liberal Creationist! (To those missing the reference, Saletan, 2007, Slate, who explains)
Ktward
I do not care for "scoring points" with anyone besides family and close friends so i don't know what the first part of your comment has anything to do with my comment towards you.
This being your first time commenting here has also nothing to do with what I said, the tone and self entitlement of your comment is what I was pointing out as the reason Clark doesn't respect 3/4 of the commenters.
Is it it unreasonable to expect Clark to post on his own post? no.
Is it unreasonable that he also doesn't want to post in it? also no, so why demand it?
What silly overreach? you plainly stated (and I quote) that you…
"No matter. I'm outta here. The only thing I wanted was for Clark to [finally] engage on his own post. Now that he's here, there are plenty of y'all who echo my own thoughts- no need for me to further comment."
He is here, mission accomplished. That's what you said, that's what I pointed out as the behavior Clark sees and that is his reason to not respect a lot of people here. Can't say I blame him.
In the land of reality Clark doesn't care if "loyal" Popehat (or better said Ken) readers are mad at him for what appears to be a misunderstanding and poor choice of words in Clark's part. the same way I'm sure Ken doesn't care when one of Clark's friends thinks badly of him. Specially when said readers engage in such a way that makes it not pleasant to talk with them (like calling his post spineless from the beginning)
As he said earlier(to you nonetheless), he has talked with Ken already and Ken is the only person Clark should care about, not random people in the comment section of his post.
@Clark,
Your arguments over VD's intelligence look to me like distractions from the issues that matter, i.e., why you decided not to rain hell-fire, and what that signifies. I'll stipulate that VD is as smart you think he is, and that his opinions are well reasoned, albeit from deeply flawed premises. So what? I'd be surprised if you believe intelligence buys a pass for mistreating anyone, much less someone you care about.
You said that when the time came for the promised rampage, your heart wasn't in it. You felt compelled to take the high road. I don't see that as necessarily a bad thing. I have no idea what understanding you had with Ken, or what either of you said to the other, and even if I did I wouldn't presume to know how Ken would feel about how you chose to handle this. What I can say is how I'd feel if you were my friend, you made that promise to me, and you reneged for the reasons you gave Ken. I'd like to think I'd be OK with it, with two provisos: I'd expect an apology, and I'd want to know your operative principle really was viewpoint neutral, i.e., unrelated to any affinity you feel for VD's opinions on matters like politics and SJWs. If after sincere reflection you said to me that you'd have reacted identically if the dick in question had been Brian Leiter or Rosie O'Donnell instead of Vox Day, I'd like to think my reply would be "good on ya." Otherwise, not so much.
Look: I don't need anyone to seek an apology from Clark on my behalf. If you're arguing with him about apologies or what he owes me, you're doing it on your own behalf, not mine.
@Ken, If that's directed at me, I thought I was pretty explicit in disclaiming any ability to speak for you, and only speculating about how I might feel in similar circumstances. If I wasn't as clear as I tried to be, I'm sorry for the confusion.
@Annoyed @Mike A.
I have stayed true to my word, despite not being forced to do so by any form of contract. I have created an rss feed of Popehat filtering out Clark's posts.
If anyone besides myself is interested in this feed you can get it here
The caveats to using this are:
This works, for me, today. Any of those things may not be true for you.
It only filters Clark's posts, not comments.
@curt:
https://www.popehat.com/2013/10/08/a-policy-under-consideration/
Please don't masturbate in public at my blog.
@patterico: I've enjoyed your writing off and on for some time now. Thank you.
The Vox Day blog has created a successful filter to keep out, well.. A lot of the folks here. Poor reading comprehension, weak reasoning skills, and a strong whining bent. I've read all the comments (not happening again. Ever.) in order to post this, but of all the many, many assertions that Mr. Beale is Pure Evil (aka"stupid." sigh.) I've only seen 3 examples given: one of which I know for a fact is faked: selective editing, deliberate misrepresentation. I've only been reading the VD blog for a few months but I've already spotted a pattern: readers who can't or won't pay attention (the skim 'till offended phenom) can toddle off shrieking "o the Horrors!" and good riddence. It doesn't appear to cost Mr. Beale anything, serves as a filter, and reinforces the "we know better than those emo reactionaries" attitude of the ilk.
That said, I am always surprised when conservatives aren't more skeptical of calls for universal ritual denunciations. Particularly for crimes of bad think. One would expect, having experienced the way a meme (say) "Patterico hates the poor" propagates like wild-fire, based on half truths and propaganda, you'd be more willing to hold fire until and unless you had the time to investigate for yourself.
@the rest of the blog: conservatives assume a "civil liberties" blog is left wing because organizations that fight for liberty or justice (FIRE; Juditial Watch) don't need weaselly modifiers to enable them to work toward censorship, serfdom, and injustice for those as deserve that kind of thing. A broad net, true, but it catches a lot of fish.
Now you can all disqualify me as an angry white dude.
Aw, you wacky creationists would be funny if you weren't so sad.
Yeah pretty much.
You're assuming that I didn't investigate for myself. I did. I went and read the post. It was nasty. It was chest-beating. It reeked of macho insecurity. And it was offensive to Ken, who, as I said above, has stood by me when I have been attacked, for years, and whom I consider a friend.
That post was enough for me to form my judgment. Beale could be George Washington, Mother Theresa, and Albert Einstein rolled into one person (though I strongly suspect he's not), and I would still denounce him for that post alone. If you had any sense you'd do the same.
Otherwise, thanks for the kind words.
Just because someone (who was rather desperate to make a partisan point) said this . . . doesn't make it true. Many commenters above said they had always assumed this was a conservative blog and/or that they thought Ken was conservative.
I don't agree with too much of what Clark thinks. But I respect the fact that he does think, and he takes the time to write in detail about his thought processes, and then he posts it here where everyone is going to shit all over it. And he doesn't paste commenters, even when they really do deserve it. That's how someone acts when he is actually willing to absorb new ideas and reconsider his presuppositions. I gather Clark has reconsidered many of them over the course of his life, and I have a lot of respect for that.
Should he have rained hell-fire on Beale? I am a favor of ignoring trolling, so I would have filed that comment under "meaningless hyperbole," not as "vow from a loyal friend.". The world is often made worse by people keeping promises that were ill-considered in the first place, anyway.
What would Jesus do? He'd probably show up on Beale's doorstep one afternoon and invite himself to dinner and to spend the night, just as he did with various unsavory people in the Gospel stories. Then he'd waste a few hours debating Beale honestly, face to face, treating him as a human and not as a troll, no matter how unlikely it was to do any good.
@Ken
Yeah. Sorry. We are attacking Clark because he opened himself up to it, not on your behalf. He showed hinself to be morally weak on the Internet of all places. That you are big and clever enough to take care of yourself is irrelevant.
Clark has shown himself to be fundamentally lacking and we are going to use it against him forever. Those are the rules he has set. We are just playing by them.
I'm glad Clark wrote this. It's a good lesson to those who thought his "Burn it down" rhetoric was more than just bluster. Ken knew what type of person Clark is, and probably didn't take his promise seriously in the first place. It's still rather sad way to treat a friend, but predictable.
@MaxZ:
I set those rules, did I? Link, please?
@Ken – Who apologizes to who or doesn't and where is very clearly your business, and as someone who enjoys reading your writing and hopes you will continue to publish it, I'm glad you're OK with how things stand. This comment thread (and as the long ones usually do, I think it has become different things for different people) is an attempt to find out how Clark finds his own comments and actions internally consistent, and explain to him why they may seem unsavory to other persons who, in spite of disagreeing with some or all of his choices, are still rational and capable of reasoned debate.
@Clark
I was parodying Vox's post that you refuse to straightforwardly condemn.
Funnier: Mike A going straight from Lewtonin's fallacy to trying to tell someone else about Dunning-Kruger, or Clark bringing up Poe's law? I can't decide
Sod Poe's law. People thinking you are serious when you are taking the piss is very amusing. Sod these 'laws' in total actually. It is the kind of thing the Nazis would do.
Anyway, can we get back to the fact that Clark won't defend a close friend that gives him his blogging profile against a notorious troll, despite a promise to do so? A troll who is horribly sexist, racist and homophobic. Clark made a commitment to back Ken up and broke it.
Clark smells of Vox Day and lets down friends. I for one promise to use Clark's moral bankruptcy against him in every thread ever.
Oh, and for the moderators with ban hammers. I am just being a 'performance artist' and you love them.
@Paige, that was my original interest in this as well, but the more I thought about it, the more I became interested in the notion of "crisp thinker", which is important in this debate as VD's saving grace. I was hoping that we all could start thinking about axiomatic systems, the premises derived therefrom, and the responsibility of a "crisp thinker" to update both premises and axioms in the face of data.
Ah well.
I was curious what your background was in (more math or philosophy), as it seemed like you were conversant in the issues at hand.
@MaxZ: don't worry! As long as you're a "crisp thinker," you can say anything and, as long as it's cleverly phrased, Clark will apparently be cool with it. Godspeed pursing whatever heinous "axioms" float your boat, with Clark's blessing.
Can someone fill me in on something?
Is this just a piece of really elaborate trolling by Clark? I actually have difficulty understanding how non-Nazis find much to like in the personage of Teddy Beale, who is a third rate human being by any standard you can find in the collected surviving works of Greek philosophers. The litany of illogical, spiteful, hateful and just plain stupid ideas emanating from Mr. "VD" (which I automatically read as "venereal disease" to begin with, which, well…) have been pretty accurately discussed at length here, too. The defense of Mr. Beale seems to be mostly "but he's taking it to the SJWs" which I am pretty much forced to take as further trolling, because people using "SJW" unironically (or at least without an actual definition of the term) are, almost unanimously, deeply unserious people. Another defense seems to be engaging in semantics about "values systems" – while I suppose it's true that holding a set of values that logically end in e.g. calling for the execution of all homosexuals is not irrational or against the act of reasoning per se, I have a hard time understanding why anyone would adopt such a value system or treat it with even a modicum of respect. Are we just going full relativist here? What's wrong with Stalin or Hitler, folks, it's just my value system that logically concludes with them as optimal world leaders! Treat my ideas fairly! You can do this with literally anything if you're willing to put in the time to find some axioms and make a logically coherent system.
So was the goal to have a 400 comments shitfest for the lulz or what? It fits very strangely with Ken's recent very brave and very good post (that I have shared).
@Marzipan
I'm a chemist by training and a teacher by employment…I read both math and philosophy voraciously. The honest exchange of ideas is rare, and has drawn me to this blog since I discovered it. I agree…the fundamental issue is whether, for the argument in this case, the structure is bad and doomed to failure after a certain amount of inference, or whether the inference is faulty. I don't pretend to be the logician to tease apart those possibilities. I can only know I smell a rat…there's a logical failure somewhere between the initial conditions as presented and the conclusions as drawn.
@AlphaCentauri
AlphaCentauri,
I think you're the only person in this entire blog readership who really gets me.
Thank you.
(100% sincerely)
– Clark
Yes, congratulations for being "willing to accept" such ideas as "Women are not needed in any profession or occupation except that of child-bearer and child-rearer, and even in the case of the latter, they are only superior, they are not absolutely required."
You sicken me.
@Tricia
Tricia,
That idea seems self-evidently correct to me.
What about it strikes you as incorrect?
Clark says:
I held my nose.
I had never heard of Vox Day or Theordore Beale before (I came over here from Groklaw, rather than via any SF vector), so I had no preconceptions.
His politics and mine probably don't have an intersection.
Case in point: I find every conclusionary notion in his post America's Ethnic Achilles Heel to be abhorrent.
But what bothers me most about it is that I just can't understand the overweening superiority of someone who is so clearly intelligent. I just can't see him pulling over to help someone change a tyre, or to call a bully out in a crowded bus. Not because he's lazy (so far as I can tell, he isn't), and not because he's a coward (again, I can't see that he is), but because it would be distateful for him to do so.
I know I'm less intelligent than he. I know I'm less intelligent that Clark. But I can see that while Clark has rage — which is redeemable — Vox has anger, which is wasted energy. That doesn't impress me at all. And I'm turning him off.
He won't miss me.
Ah, so after all this sturm and drang, we get the real reason Clark would choose to back an idiotic scumbag like Vox Day over his actual friend Ken White: Clark agrees with Day's misogyny.
Oh, I know, I know. Only the crispiest of thinkers has the intellectual courage to consider that maybe women are better off as breeding stock for the humans that matter wank wank wank, or that his particular race just happens to be intellectually superior to the others (what a coincidence) wank wank wankity wank, or that a shadowy cabal of SJWs represent a truly existential threat to freedom and justice and everything good and are thus a perfect excuse for every shitty thing any reactionary might care to do WANK WANK WANK CHAFE CHAFE. So crisp, you guys. Axioms.
@Incogneato
Your reading comprehension skills are truly breath-taking.
@Clark
That's really a cheap gotcha, that phrase is just as true as "Men are not needed in any profession or occupation except that of sperm-giver and child-rearer" and the bit about women being better at child rearing by virtue of being women needs at least a couple citations (or at least a clarification of the unit of measure).
Every time I see someone who manages to couch the obvious in inflammatory terms just to act all smug at the lack of intellectual rigour of others I'm reminded of that famous kid, the one who managed to convince the whole classroom that he had shat himself.
Such a skilled prankster he was, that he is still remembered today – as the kid who shat himself in class.
@Paige, my training has been more biological, and I read philosophy and math more voraciously when I was younger. I think that Clark's assertion is that VD's logic is valid (that is, the structures of his arguments are correct). However, the correctness of VD's premises may be debatable, thus making the soundness of the argument subject for debate.
As I understand it, part of the reason people argue against the soundness of the premises is because they hold different axiomatic truths to be self-evident. I wonder whether and how people can consider axioms no longer self-evident but instead subject to alteration by data. Said another way, is any belief truly self-evident, or can any and all beliefs be altered according to data? If the latter, how does one go about altering belief structures wholesale if the axioms underpinning arguments change given the nature of how learning is represented in the brain?
That women are not needed in any occupation other than child-bearing is, if not self-evident, at least pedantically true.
But the logic of that claim leads us to recognize that it's equally (pedantically) true that men are not needed for any occupation except sperm donation, and that a much smaller number of men is needed as sperm donors than the number of women needed as child bearers, so we must conclude that men are of less value than women.
So what does Beale do with his claim about women's lack of value? Does he follow it through to the logical conclusion that men are of even less value? No, he ignores the corollary logic.
Notice also that in the essay in which he writes that line, his assumption is that what is advantageous to women is being fecund procreators, and that education harms this interest. But this not only shows an ignorance of the K reproductive strategy, it assumes that women are homogeneous in their interests, and that the more educated they are the less able they are to determine their own interest.
Perhaps you think that's self-evident? Or perhaps I'm too poorly educated, or just too dishonest with myself, to understand the sterling quality of his logic?
If so, perhaps you can explain it in words suited to my mean intelligence?
"White American men simply don’t rape these days. At this point, unless a womann claims it was committed by a black or Hispanic man she didn’t previously know, all claims of rape, especially by a college woman, have to be considered intrinsically suspect."
Actual quote from Beale.
Care to defend this one?
@Tricia, sadly, I doubt that's going to make Clark think twice. At this point, Vox could call a black woman he disagrees with an uncivilized half-savage — which he's already done, by the way — and as long as it was adjacent to a sufficient number of cunning metaphors, Clark would care more about Vox's success as a scifi writer.
@Incognito nailed it: "So crisp, you guys. Axioms."
"For example, you engaged with N K Jesmin, and – unless I miss my guess – carefully chose the word "savage" because it was literally a valid representation of her behavior AND was calculated as maximally likely to get the SJWs to lose their shit because they'd leap to the racist interpretation of the phrase."
-Clark on VD's blog.
Jesus' tits, Clark, you're bending over backwards more than fucking Voldo to try to find some way to claim this guy isn't a piece of shit.
"…it is not that I, and others, do not view [Jemisin] as human, (although genetic science presently suggests that we are not equally homo sapiens sapiens), it is that we simply do not view her as being fully civilized for the obvious historical reason that she is not."
He compared Jemisin to, and I quote, an “illiterate Igbotu tribesman.”
But as long as it angers these eeeeeeeevil SJWs, right?
I don't even know why I'm making this post, since all it's doing is giving you the option to try to weasel your way through this one rather than address "White men don't rape," but eh.
@Tricia Sounds like Clark's fallen hard for "enemy of my enemy is my friend" logic.
Clark, remember, we didn't forgive Stalin his anti-democratic "axioms" just because he fought Hitler. And Stalin's thinking was quite "crispy" indeed.
"Both you and Mike A. said, "Race is a social construct." That phrase is totally wrong, no matter that it is commonly said on the left."
Even if the concept of race corresponds to some physical reality (see below), that does not imply that it is not also a social construct.
For example, Mexicans and other Spanish-speaking ethnicities* are often stereotyped as being lazy. Do you think that this particular stereotype corresponds to some biological reality about Spanish-speaking central and south American peoples? Or is it possible that some stereotypes do not correspond to any such biological reality?
If the latter (i.e. if there is such a thing as a stereotype that is not true), then obviously the stereotype is socially constructed and not really a way to speak about biological variation (because, by assumption, we are not talking about real biological variation here).
*Part of the problem with your simplistic portrayal of race is that race and ethnicity are neither completely orthogonal concepts, nor are they completely identical. It's very difficult in general to determine whether someone talking about "race" is in actuality talking about ethnicity. In particular, many Mexicans are nearly pure-blooded Europeans (Spaniards, who are still considered white) in terms of ancestry, while others are nearly pure-blooded descendants of the native populations. Nonetheless, people of either ancestry, or of a more thoroughly mixed ancestry, are subject to the same racial stereotypes — because of shared culture, not shared genes.
"Race is not something that society created. Race is language used to describe real biological and genetic variation, however imperfectly. "
Well…yes, race is something society created.
You could say "trees are not something that society created." And on a first-order analysis, that's a completely reasonable statement. But "trees" as a concept involves boundaries — some things are trees (within the boundaries) and some things are not trees (outside the boundaries). For example, a juniper is not a tree — it is a shrub. But what is it about the juniper that makes it not-a-tree? Something intrinsic to the juniper? Some not-being-tree property encoded into it somehow?
No — it is not a tree because it does not meet the definition of the word "tree". Where does that definition come from? A sociological process — human beings worked together over the course of hundreds of years to devise a classification system that defines junipers as "not trees".
Now, this definition (of tree) does in fact correspond to a biological reality — shrubs and trees have different structures. But which structures are used in the definition of "tree" are essentially arbitrary — an essentially equivalent system could be devised that includes some of what are now called "shrubs" as "trees" without significantly reducing the utility of either term.
"Race" is a little more problematic than "tree" in this context, because:
1. The definition of "race" is not nearly so settled or clear as the definition of "tree".
2. There are few, if any, political or moral problems that depend on the definition of "tree".
3. As mentioned above, "race" is frequently conflated with "ethnicity", to the point where it is almost impossible to disentangle these two concepts.
"Social meanings can be added on afterwards, but they are not the primary thing. Social meanings can be erased or rewritten but the contours of biological and genetic variation (i.e. what folks like Barack Obama and your grandmother mean by race) would still remain."
Can you provide some sort of citation about what Obama or my grandmother mean about race? I don't think you have any more access to their opinions on the matter than I do, so this strikes me as begging the question or empty posturing.
That said, I think the sorts of "common sense" views on race that you're trying to reference here obviously DO NOT correspond to biological realities. For example, "black" is a race under the common sense view, but there is actually a great deal more genetic variation among Africans than the people of any other continent. If the "common sense" view of race corresponded to some genetic reality of race, then we would expect some recognition of this fact by distinguishing between different "black" races. Not only that, you'd expect the "common sense" view to acknowledge that American blacks tend to have a great deal more white ancestry than African blacks.
In fact, in my experience, the "common sense" view is that black Africans are more "racially" white than black Americans (who are definitely more biologically white).
"The only people who say "Race is a social construct" are leftist ideologues. Nobody outside of that group says that, because a casual look at the world around us is enough to make clear that the basis of race is very real."
Most racial stereotypes seem to be cultural rather than biological in origin, and as I argue above, the "common sense" concept of race that you seem to hold in such high regard is actually a hopeless confusion between culture and biology.
I don't doubt it is possible to define "race" via genetics in such a way that it jives sensibly with the current state of genetics, but "race" as you discuss it does not do that and never will. And I don't see much point in reinventing the concept of race now that we can discuss genetic variation directly instead of using a terrible and confounded proxy like "race."
All of which makes me:
1. An SJW
2. wrong wrong wrong
3. scientifically illiterate
4. a liberal creationist
Stereotype isn't a synonym of race, numbnuts.
Discovered Popehat and subscribed to the RSS feed about an hour ago. Then came to this post and unsubscribed. Didn't realize Clark was a contributor; not worth it to be here with him around. You folks have fun with him. No need to reply: I'm long gone.
The linked post reads very much like the author is a sociopath and proud of it. Never heard of him before, but that's my read.
IF you take Ignorance, insanity and stupidity off the tables as excused for Vox Day, all you havbe left is that he is simply evil. You stripped away any possible excuse for his hate.
"Tricia,
That idea seems self-evidently correct to me.
What about it strikes you as incorrect?"
Oh, fuck that shit.
You know damn well what VD was implying and how he knew this comment would be read. "Oh, but technically he didn't say women are only good for housework and can't work outside the home, he just said they don't NEED to, see you SJWs are just so angry and irrational!"
Fuck. That. Shit.
Trolling is not a virtue. VD says mysoginistic sounding things on purpose because he is a mysoginist. Couching that mysoginy in weasel worded language is not funny or clever. It's cowardly.
Not to mention you're ignoring all the times he's said blatantly more mysoginistic shit, like that it's impossible for a husband to rape their wife.
Your defense of this raging asshole makes you just as bad as he is.