A triumph of effort

Ender has had a tough couple of weeks. Missing two weeks due to a poorly timed illness at the beginning of the spring season caused him to lose the starting position he'd worked so hard to merit in the fall. Even when he came back, he was looking a little lost on the field, and his coach was quite right in deciding to demote him to a second-half substitute. He was a little frustrated, naturally, but I told him to be patient, keep working, and everything would sort itself out in time. So, he kept practicing, playing respectably when he went into the game, and generally maintaining his equanimity.

He finally got his chance four weeks ago when the team was having a very tough time stopping a small, but very fast attacker who was blowing past the starting right defender at will. The team was only losing 1-0, but the first twenty minutes of the game had been played in their end, the keeper was getting shellacked, and the next goal was clearly only a matter of time. One of Ender's friends had come to watch the game, and at one point, I heard him muttering "Mama mia, che disastro" and I couldn't help but agree. Finally, the coach, who is really quite good, decided he had to change things up in order to keep the team from collapsing. He put in Ender at right back, who like the defender for whom he was substituting was badly overmatched in terms of speed, but I'd been watching the attackers closely and pointed out to him how the speedy attacker always wanted to go down the line. Every time, it was fake inside, go outside. So, by going aggressively to the ball, utilizing smart offside trapping, anticipating that inside-out move, and committing outright fouls when the attacker was getting around him, Ender managed to shut the kid down and help his team to a 3-2 victory. (Having once been a speed player myself, I have a pretty good idea how to disrupt them.) The other team's second goal initially looked like his fault, as he failed to clear a ball that was coming across the area, but as it turned out, the goalie had called for it and he'd properly let it go. After the game, his coach was delighted, as the one thing the defense has tended to lack is toughness, and he promptly restored Ender to his position at starting right back.

This, however, led to another problem. The boy whose starting position he'd taken has a friend who is a bit of a troublemaker, and after practice, the troublemaker egged the other boy, who is a full head taller, into attacking Ender. He wasn't much of a fighter, though, and Ender sent him away crying. I have to give the kid credit though, as at the next practice, when the coach asked about what had happened and the troublemaker lied, claiming Ender started it, the boy stepped forward of his own volition and set matters striaght. Things were just a bit uncomfortable before the next game, as there was a miscommunication about the meeting place, and when Ender and I showed up, the troublemaker was the only one there. But we gave him a ride anyhow, for as I explained to Ender, who was half-inclined to leave the kid there, you don't have to like your teammates, but you still have to have their back.

It was a big game for everyone, since it was against their archrivals from the bigger neighboring town and there is a noticeable inferiority complex that affects kids and adults alike. They got off to a bad start, going down 1-0, but struck back quickly with goals from their two best players. It was 2-1 when his team won a corner kick; Ender went up in support, as always, but this time the other team failed to send anyone out to guard him in his position just outside the 18-yard box. He noticed this, called for the ball, and to my surprise, the girl taking the corner kick quickly passed it to him. He stepped in and hit it on the first touch, and sent the ball in a beautiful rainbow right into the far upper corner. Goal, 3-1, and the game was essentially over. It was his first goal at this level and the look on his face was a marvel to see, half exultation, half incredulity, as his teammates all ran over to mob him. After the game, I was talking with one of the other parents when I noticed that the kid walking along next to Ender and discussing the game with him on the way to the locker room was the troublemaker.

The team is actually coming together rather nicely. Two days ago, they played an evening game against an undefeated team from the big city. I was just hoping they'd lose respectably, as in the warm-ups it was quite clear that the other team was much more skilled. Before the game, the coach snorted angrily to me that they were acting like stars and looking down at the little peasants from the countryside. But despite going down 1-0 to an absolutely ridiculous penalty call after, the team stayed calm and struck back with a beautiful goal from one attacker in the first half, then the team's other attacker scored a second goal to take the lead with about ten minutes left in the game. Ender was worn out by keeping an even faster attacker under control and had to come out for a while, but the coach switched to a catenaccio strategy at the end and despite his exhaustion put him back in as a fourth defender. The other team was attacking with all the desperation of big city boys who didn't want to lose to the little peasant team, especially with the potential winning goal scored by a girl. But despite a few close calls, the catenaccio held firm, and they very nearly added a third goal on the counterattack. You would have thought it was the World Cup, as when the final whistle blew, Ender's team was celebrating wildly while half the players on the big city team were in tears.

They're not going to win the league this year, in fact,they're not even going to win their conference. They've only got one, possibly two, players who could start on either of the two best teams. But it's really a lot of fun to watch them play, and I'm very proud of how Ender never gives up, no matter how bleak the prospects appear.

Fear of lack of failure

Daniel Hannan points out what the Eurocrats really fear:

Eurocrats are especially concerned that Greece might leave the euro – but not for the reason you might think. Their worry is not that Greece will sink into a state of Levantine poverty: that has already happened. No, their true fear is that, after a few wretched months, Greece would bounce back, using its newly competitive currency to price its way into the markets and export its way to growth. If that were to happen, other countries on the periphery of the eurozone, also struggling with an over-valued exchange rate, might try something similar. The whole euro project would unravel faster than you could say ‘Jacques Delors’.

Eurocrats often liken the EU to a bicycle that has to keep moving forward or topple over. A ravenous shark that has to keep swimming or die might be a better simile, but never mind: the point holds. Any rolling back of the single most important integrationist project would call the whole enterprise into question.

This is why it is unlikely that Greece will actually leave the Euro or the ECB and IMF will follow through on their threats to cut off their loans to the Greek banks in the short term. Tsipras has already publicly stated that Greece has enough money to keep its workers and retirees afloat if it stops paying its creditors, so if the loans don't come through, they'll simply default. Since the entire purpose of the various bailouts and rescue plans was to save Greece's European creditors, not Greece, the EU doesn't actually have any real leverage despite all of its posturing. While this has been obvious from the start, none of the Greek politicians were willing to say anything about it in public because the two major parties are both bank-owned. Tsipras and Syriza are not, or at least, not yet, so the game of chicken continues.

The EU was always an illusion of power and progress, so the fiction will have to be maintained until the very end of the Euro and the EU alike. The Greeks have seen through it, the question is when the rest of Europe will do so. So, as Hannan points out, the one thing the EU absolutely cannot afford to happen is for Greece to default on its sovereign debt, leave both the Euro and the EU, and begin an economic recovery. And that is why Jean-Claude Trichet, the former head of the ECB, is proposing the forcible takeover of the Greek government. He suggests giving the EU the power to declare a sovereign state bankrupt and take over its fiscal policy, further illustrating how the EU is little more than the Third Reich with banks instead of tanks.

R stands for Rape

Does Undead Press publish Wängsty?

There’s recently been a flurry of posts about Undead Press, a small publishing house that a) doesn’t pay, b) allegedly humiliates its authors by inserting gratuitous rape scenes into their stories, without asking those authors if they want those rape scenes to be there, and c) has apparently published and continues to advertise a sequel to George Romero’s DAWN OF THE DEAD, showing an absolute lack of respect for copyright or concern for the legal consequences.

Trick question. As anyone who has ever read R. Scott Bakker knows, there is no such thing as a gratuitous rape scene. Or rather, as anyone who has ever read R. Scott Bakker possesses justified true belief, there is no such thing as a gratuitous rape scene.

One of these days, I'll have to go through Bakker's books in order to create a poll on Black Gate where the legions of Bakker readers can vote on their favorite rape scene written by Rapey McRaperson. After all, it's so hard to choose between the one in Neuropath where the woman rapes the man accompanied by some of the worst sexual dialogue outside of 1970s era pornography or the one in The Warrior Prophet where the Sranc - a demonic winged creature with an Alien-style double skull - not only rapes a man, his wife, and their child to death, but also manages to make the woman climax while raping her. (Contra Umberto Eco, I have long regarded the orgasmic rape as the definitive indicator of pornography.) But make no mistake, these rape scenes are not gratuitous! They are philosophy.

I have to admit, however, that Mr. Giangregorio's publishing style appears to be more than a little awesome. Some might see it as a strange little man humiliating female authors, but I tend to interpret it as a sardonic commentary on the sex scenes in seventies and eighties science fiction, which always seemed to feature that one completely pointless scene in which the hot primary female character - usually red-headed - seduces the unsuspecting male protagonist without ever having given any signs of being attracted to him. I always viewed it as the fat, clueless SF author's perspective on the Stygian mysteries of inter-sexual relations.

God is not dead

Jonathan Frost concludes that God is dead:

Like many young men in the 21st century, I’ve come to some grim conclusions about the state of the world. I’ve developed a healthy mistrust of conventional wisdom and the institutions responsible for teaching it. I’m hardly the only one. The blogroll to the left is mostly composed of men like myself who have also been raised in the late 20th century American tradition, and found it lacking. In short, we have lost our faith. We are adrift. But wait! Traditional Christians like Dalrock, Ulysses, Elusive Wapiti, Throne and Altar, Koanic, Larry Auster and Patriactionary have a message for young men like myself. The message is: “We have an alternative for you. The Alternative is Christ. Turn to Christ, and the world will make sense to you. Turn to Christ en masse, and the world will become just.” But the message is not landing, and I’ll tell you why:

The message is not new, but at least the reasoning is original. Let's consider his explanations for his loss of faith:

1) Christian Theology is implicitly leftist

This is a simple confusion of Christian Theology with the infiltration and perversion of many Christian churches concerning which the Apostle Paul warned. Not only is there nothing leftist about Christianity, Christianity and left-wing ideology have very few things in common except a belief in the inevitable progress of history towards a fixed end. Christian theology declares the world will end in fire and blood of the Harvest of Souls, left-wing ideology asserts it will end in the pink and sparkly gay globalist picture presented at the end of Disneyland's It's a Small World ride. What Frost fails to realize is that leftism is the substitution of the State for God, for a static humanity instead of Christianity's intrinsically dynamic one. This, of course, is why leftist regimes invariably persecute Christianity, as unlike Frost, they recognize their implacable enemy.

2) Christianity is already responsible most for our problems

Christianity didn't bring down the Roman empire. That's simply the long-outdated view put forth by Edward Gibbon. And the chief difference between a Leninist and a Christian is that the former believes in the perfectibility of Man whereas the latter rejects it entirely. This is, to put it mildly, a fundamental and irreconcilable difference. Nor can Christianity be reasonably blamed for the demographic or debt crises of the West, indeed, it would be closer to the mark, though still incorrect, to blame Judaism.

3) The Church Is Doomed

Nero couldn't wipe it out. Diocletian couldn't slow its growth. Julian the Apostate couldn't put a dent in it. The left-wing butchers of the French Revolution, the October Revolution, the Great Leap Forward, and the Killing Fields all failed in their murderous efforts to eradicate it despite the possession of absolute power. Christianity persists even in the death camps of the North Korean communists. Frost is correct in that the atheist hate and the desire to destroy the Church is most definitely there, but he fails to recognize the historical reality that persecution has always purified and refined the faith and made the Church stronger. The weaker brethren will fall by the wayside, as they always have, while the stronger ones convert their very killers through the powerful witness of their martyrdom. The Gates of Hell will not prevail.

4) Modern Christianity is a feminist and leftist institution

Correction: modern churchianity is a feminist and mildly leftist institution. It is true that many of the formal denominations are rapidly dying out as a result of their abandonment of Christian theology. They may possess the name and the form, but the animating spirit has left the building. However, the number of the non-denominational "unchurched" continues to grow explosively and at the expense of the dying mainline institutions.

5) Christianity is False

Frost is certainly welcome to his conclusion. But again, his reasoning that supports it is flawed. He writes: "But if Christianity is true, there should be some indication of it as such in our observable reality. The texts of Christianity should accord with morals that encourage stable and just societies. Christianity should be associated historically with righteousness. Christianity should not be breathing its last breaths before landing on the ash heap of history."

I note first Frost's implied opinion that the West is in decline and his declared opinion that Christianity is in decline. If he values the traditional West, which was historically known as Christendom, then it would appear to be obvious that its decline is at least in part due to the decline of Christianity within it. Moreover, he has a fundamental misunderstanding of Christianity, as it explicitly states the complete opposite of his assertion that Christianity should be associated historically with righteousness, because Christianity provides the very metric by which we are able to discern our own unrighteousness. To his credit, Frost himself admits his general lack of knowledge concerning Christian theology, and I would tend to second the commenter's recommendation of beginning with The Chronicles of Narnia, continuing with the first two books of Lewis's Space Trilogy, before then moving on to some of Lewis's non-fiction as well as Chesterton.

Only then would it perhaps make sense to consider exploring the Catholic catechism or reading Augustine, Aquinas, and the early Fathers if he is still interested in delving deeper. It may sound ludicrous to suggest beginning with children's novels, but then, the sad and observable reality is that most of the opinions expressed by various critics of Christianity reveal that their theological knowledge doesn't even rise to that remarkably low level. As for a very good historical overview of the effects of Christianity on Rome, I would recommend the first volume of the Cambridge Medieval History, subtitled The Christian Empire.

Game over

The demographic sun sets on the USA:

After years of speculation, estimates and projections, the Census Bureau has made it official: White births are no longer a majority in the United States. Non-Hispanic whites accounted for 49.6 percent of all births in the 12-month period that ended last July, according to Census Bureau data made public on Thursday, while minorities — including Hispanics, blacks, Asians and those of mixed race — reached 50.4 percent, representing a majority for the first time in the country’s history. Such a turn has been long expected, but no one was certain when the moment would arrive — signaling a milestone for a nation whose government was founded by white Europeans and has wrestled mightily with issues of race, from the days of slavery, through a civil war, bitter civil rights battles and, most recently, highly charged debates over efforts to restrict immigration....

Minorities accounted for 92 percent of the nation’s population growth in the decade that ended in 2010, Mr. Frey calculated, a surge that has created a very different looking America from the one of the 1950s, when the TV characters Ozzie and Harriet were a national archetype. The change is playing out across states with large differences in ethnic and racial makeup between the elderly and the young. Some of the largest gaps are in Arizona, Nevada, Texas and California, states that have had flare-ups over immigration, school textbooks and priorities in spending. The nonrural county with the largest gap is Yuma County, Ariz., where just 18 percent of people under 20 are white, compared with 73 percent of people over 65, Mr. Frey said.

It is most certainly a milestone, but precisely what does that milestone signify? At the risk of being accused of historicity by Karl Popper, the answer seems fairly obvious. Historical multi-ethnic societies have traditionally been empires, more specifically, empires ruled by hereditary monarchs. And as the ethnic differences grew, those empires, even those sharing the bond of an all-encompassing state religion, tended to break apart on ethnic lines. So, even if we discount any possibility of qualitative differences between the various ethnicities that have now replaced the relatively homogenous white population, we should expect a) a move towards increasingly authoritarian, winner-takes-all, short term-oriented government, and b) an eventual breakup into two or three political entities.

The obvious one, of course, is the split between Hispanic America in the southwest and the rest of the country. However, as we've seen with the Euro debacle, once it becomes obvious that one split is on the cards, others will become seen to be increasingly viable. And once the Hispanic portion of the country exercises its legitimate right to self-determination and goes its own way, presumably before 2033, it seems readily apparent that White America will at long last separate into its "liberal" and "conservative" halves when conservative America finally realizes that the country, to say nothing of the nation, was literally unable to survive the self-destructive tendencies of its liberal population. These political separations won't necessarily require civil war or even large-scale violence - Czechoslovakia peacefully divided into Slovakia and the Czech Republic after 74 years of political union - but in this case, it probably will due to the heavily ideological aspects of the divide.

Pulling out all the stops

The ECB and the EU are desperately trying to figure out how to jettison Greece without causing the entire Fourth Reich project to collapse:

Because it is one thing to predict the inevitable when one doesn't have a PhD in Economics, it is something totally different when it comes from the likes of Goldman Sachs (Huw Pill and Themistokis Fiotakis to be precise). In this case, that something is what happens at T+1, T being the inevitable (there's that word again) point where payments from the ECB to sustain the zombified Greek patient, all of which go to ECB funded entities anyway, stop. The biggest concern is that, as we suggested first thing this morning, the ECB is now engaged in a fatal game of chicken, whereby it is forcing Greeks to vote "Pro Bailout" (something that just dawned on the FT), in exchange for continued funding, because unlike last year when the threat of a referendum resulted in the termination of G-Pap, now there is no leader who can be sacrificed, and Europe has no real leverage over the people who have lost so much already, aside from threatening a full out bank system collapse. However, this could very well backfire as more and more Greeks pull their money out, not wanting to find out who blinks first as it would be their money that could be locked up in perpetuity, in essence making the ECB threat into a self-fulfilling prophecy. And as Goldman says, "If confidence is lost and a run on banks occurs, the implications are hard to assess." Well, as ZH warned yesterday, this is already starting. Again from the FT: "Athens-based bankers said withdrawals exceeded €1.2bn on Monday and Tuesday – 0.75 per cent of deposits – as President Karolos Papoulias failed in two final meetings with conservative, socialist and leftwing leaders to form a national unity government." Or double what was suggested yesterday...

Don't assume that this straw will definitely be the one to break the camel's back. I expect them to pull a few more rabbits out of a few more hats before the entire edifice collapses. But regardless of whether they're able to keep Greece, Italy, and Spain in the fold for another year or two, the long-term trend is clear.

Mailvox: God and the post-game

01 asks about the conflation of Christianity and Nick Bostrom's simulation hypothesis:

Okay, this is interesting: appears Vox here is some kind of simulation-solipsist, actually. And to think I thought he’s some kind of christian…hehe… Vox, would you care to answer a question ? If your simulation hypothesis is, in a general sense, correct (that is, universe is a simulation, and religious rules are supposed to be a factor by which the system selects AI programs that are “fit” for some unknown external purpose), what exactly makes you believe that simulation-designer is granting a happy future existence to those who abide by the “in-universe” rules he set, and not vice-versa (sinners go to “data haven / a better employment”, pious ones are tortured eternally or deleted)?

Is there any reliable way to tell that sim-op isn’t actually preferring AIs who see the author of “religious rules” as “crazy lying fucktard”, and deleting everyone else as soon as they “in-universe die” (or worse)? It’s not like you can have out-of-simulation knowledge of sim-op’s goals, can you?

I not only don't see any conflict between the simulation hypothesis and the concept of a supernatural Creator God, to me it appears obvious that there is no way of reasonably distinguishing between the two from the human perspective. What leads me to believe the assurances of the "happy future existence" is that they are contained in the same game manual that contains the various reliable predictive models of human behavior provided in The Bible. I don’t know that I would necessarily describe it as “a happy future existence” so much as “the next level”, though. The interesting question to me is if Eternity is static as most Christians assume and Platonic Form theory would suggest, or if it is dynamic and it will be possible to fall from grace in that level too. I tend to incline towards the latter view, but it’s just an impression, not even an opinion.

I don't think there is any way of meaningfully performing in-game testing of post-game results. The manual itself could be a deception, delivering on its in-game promises while deceiving with regards to its post-game ones. I touch upon this in TIA. For example, if Moloch were the sim-op aka Creator, then abortionists would be ministers and Hitler and Mao two of the saints. We can't have out-of-game knowledge of anything because we are in the game. But to me, the important thing is to realize that you are playing the game regardless of whether you want to play it or not, whether you believe you are playing it or not.

Police for the police state

Actually, it's rather hard to blame them:

ATHENS, MAY 11 - More than half of all police officers in Greece voted for pro-Nazi party Chrysi Avgi' (Golden Dawn) in the elections of May 6. This is the disconcerting result of an analysis carried out by the authoritative newspaper To Vima (TheTribune) in several constituencies in Athens, where 5,000 police officers in service in the Greek capital also cast their ballot. At some polling stations Chrysi Avgi' obtained 19 to 24% of votes.

The tragic thing isn't that the police are supporting Golden Dawn. The tragic thing is that the Golden Dawn is, despite the very legitimate concerns about its ideology, probably the most sensible political option in Greece. In a choice between Greek Neo-Nazis and the real thing in Berlin and Brussels, you really would have to prefer the former.

He's mad, mad, I tell you!

Delavagus is really reaching now... and he wants your opinion:

pdimov, 691 — you ‘like’ Vox, right? Meaning, you read Vox’s blog, you came here from there. Is that right? If so, I’m really interested to know what you make of posts like the above, from Vox. This post in particular seems to me addled, delusional, paranoid. I’m honestly beginning to think that Vox is mentally ill. (I’m entirely serious — I don’t mean this as an insult.)

So what do you make of it? Your posts here — at least the ones responding to me, i.e., the ones I’ve read — have struck me as sane and well-thought-out. So what do you think of Vox? Do posts such as this one not strike you as insane?

Okay. But what do you make of the post I was asking about? Can you recognize the features of it that strike me as delusional, paranoid, etc.? Can you provide any insight into what you think I’m supposed to make of the things he says? I’m honestly having trouble viewing him as a rational animal.

You all know what I have to say on the matter. Vox's First Law. Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from insanity.

The skeptic's defense

Delavagus piles on more bovine excreta, more than six thousand words worth, as a matter of fact, in a futile attempt to obscure the heaping, steaming mass he had previously produced. A brief excerpt:

The Second Error Vox identifies concerns my use of ‘justified true belief’ as an analysis of knowledge. The oddity of labeling this an ‘error’ is so startling I’m not even sure what to say about it. I’ve already explained elsewhere to Vox the wrong-headedness of appealing to the dictionary as a final word on the matter even in ordinary contexts, let alone in philosophical contexts. As far as I’ve seen, Vox has not responded to these remarks. I will not repeat them here. Suffice it to say that ‘justified true belief’ is the standard philosophical analysis of knowledge. It is not intended to capture everyday usage of variants of ‘to know,’ and thus pointing out that it fails to do so is not a criticism. This is such an elementary point that, again, I’m not sure what to say about it. I can only marvel at Vox’s shallowness.

Now, Vox seems to think that the proffered philosophical analysis is just one more definition, on a par with the nine he pulls from whatever dictionary he consults. But that is to fundamentally misunderstand the nature and purpose of a philosophical analysis of a concept. In short, the idea behind the ‘justified true belief’ formulation (as I say in my first post) is that there are, on the one hand, beliefs, while on the other hand there is the truth. A certain kind of person—most of us, I would hope—ideally want our beliefs to be true, that is, we want to believe true things. We have this word, knowledge, that is generally (my God, I said ‘generally’! ‘error’! ‘error’!) taken as a contrast to belief, in the sense that ‘knowledge’ differs from (mere) belief in also being true. This is backed up by most of the definitions Vox trots out: knowledge has to do with ‘facts’ and ‘truths.’ The question, then, is how we can bridge the prima facie gap between ‘belief’ and ‘truth.’ We do so, philosophy has long maintained, by way of justification. Hence, ‘justified true belief’ is an analysis of the concept of knowledge, not a definition of the use of the word.

A brief comment on ‘generally.’ I wrote: “Knowledge is generally taken to be justified true belief.” Vox claims: “Weasel words such as ‘generally’, ‘basically’, and ‘pretty much’ are always red flags, particularly when they precede something as important as the definition of an argument’s foundation or central subject.” This is such a bizarre criticism that it boggles the mind. ‘Generally’ is not (or needn’t be) a ‘weasel’ word; it is simply a qualifier. It appears all the time in scholarly literature, or anything written by people who are actually conversant with the welter of views on a complex subject. When it comes to something like the proper analysis of ‘knowledge,’ it is to be expected that not all philosophers agree. In other words, it is to be expected that any analysis is, at best, only ‘generally’ accepted.

Vox concludes: “As should be clear, Delavagus’s definition of knowledge isn’t a valid one in common usage, but instead represents a different concept altogether. His statement is provably incorrect, as knowledge is quite clearly NOT ‘generally taken to be justified true belief’.”

To sum up: Vox mistakes a philosophical analysis of a concept for a definition of the everyday usage of a word. Now, of course, I could have been clearer. I could have said, “Knowledge is generally taken by philosophers to be ‘justified true belief.’” But this admission merely underscores the shallowness of the criticism. Vox’s remark here also demonstrates clearly his arrogant uncharitability.

I'll respond to this in detail, of course, as an extension of the Dissecting series. But I doubt it will surprise anyone here to know that it is little more than false assertions, convoluted self-justifications, and repeated claims to be have been misunderstood due to my superficial and uncharitable reading. At one point, Delavagus even goes so far as to assert that I am "bound by the principle of charity", which of course is a notion that I absolutely reject.


UPDATE: Delavagus tries another Fighting Withdrawal:

So you still think there’s no difference between a philosophical analysis of a concept and the definition of the use of word. Please, explain to me your reasoning here. That is, actually respond to my arguments.

Sure, in fact, I’ll point out that you are wrong no matter which way you try to defend yourself. Because, you know, that’s what we superintelligences do.

1. You are writing in the context of addressing a non-philosophical crowd. You admit as much.

2. You asserted that your theme was “human stupidity”, refer to empirical evidence that humans are “stupid, stupid creatures”, then claimed that Sextus Empiricus thought it was possible to conclude that “we are all idiots” a priori. You also concluded your first post with the assertion “We are all idiots”.

3. You clearly implied that stupidity and idiocy are negatively correlated with knowledge. This implication was necessary for you to even begin making your case. It is the absence of knowledge that marks us as being stupid and idiotic.

4. You then raised the question “What, if anything, do we know?” At this point, you switched from the implied common definition to the highly technical definition, claiming that knowledge, which stupid, stupid people and idiots necessarily (as per your argument) lack, is justified true belief.

5. Wikipedia entry: “Justified true belief is one definition of knowledge that is most frequently credited to Plato and his dialogues. This is not to say that Plato was the first to come up with such a definition, but he is commonly referenced as the original author.” In other words, it is a definition, albeit not one that matches the one implied by your argument.

Now, this is enough to prove that you’re intellectually dishonest and your argument fails. But, I’m not done exposing you yet. Having been busted on your definitional switch, you’ve chosen to engage in a Fighting Withdrawal, claiming that you were not substituting a definition for a definition – even though I just proved you literally did just that – you were substituting an analysis for a definition. Let’s see if that holds up.

1. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: “According to the following analysis, which is usually referred to as the “JTB” account, knowledge is justified true belief”.” So far, so good. it is an analysis as well as a definition.

2. However, the encyclopedia goes on to say: “The objective of the analysis of knowledge is to state the conditions that are individually necessary and jointly sufficient for propositional knowledge: knowledge that such-and-such is the case. Propositional knowledge must be distinguished from two other kinds of knowledge that fall outside the scope of the analysis: knowing a place or a person, and knowing how to do something.” Oops! So, even if we accept your evasive retreat, we see that your non-definitional analysis is limited in scope, it’s not knowledge to which you were referring, but rather that subset of knowledge called “propositional knowledge”.

3. Even ignoring the various errors related to the justified true belief aspects of your argument, you neglected to provide the any link between “absence of propositional knowledge” and human stupidity. How stupid can we be even if we merely possess knowledge concerning people, places, and how to do things? How idiotic are we if we only possess two of the three types of knowledge delineated by your non-definitional analysis?

If you were intellectually honest, you would have either a) stuck with one of the common dictionary definitions of “knowledge” or b) provided similar technical philosophical analyses of the words “stupid’ and “idiot”. The amusing thing isn’t that you made various errors in the course of your argument, but rather, that it could never have succeeded given the way in which you attempted too construct it. The entire thing is fundamentally and structurally deficient.

The consequence of quality

Pat Buchanan notes that immigrants have proven to be no adequate substitution for the native stock:

Since Roe v. Wade, abortions have carried off 53 million of the generations that were to replace the boomers. While those 53 million lost have been partially replaced by 40 million immigrants, legal and illegal, our recent immigrants have not exhibited the same income- or tax-producing capacity as boomers.

Perhaps a better name for Generation X would be Generation M, for murdered. Now, the idea that one group of people can be expected to adequately fill in for another is hardly new. Military historians trace the evolution of the Roman legions from nearly pure Italian stock to mostly barbarian over the course of the Republic and Empire, and it is hardly surprising that the barbarian generals showed themselves to be much more inclined to march on Rome and declare themselves Emperor than the Romans brought up in the patrician traditions did, Gaius Julius Caesar being the obvious exception. In his book on Stalingrad, Anthony Beevor notes the way in which the Soviets particularly targeted the Nazi's Third and Fourth Romanian armies in the massive counteroffensive known as Operation Uranus and were thus able to encircle and destroy the German Sixth Army. Had the Red Army been facing 600,000 German soldiers rather than 250,000 Germans, 150,000 Romanians, and 220,000 Italians, it is very unlikely that their attack would have succeeded.

It is impossible to deny that the United States would not merely look very different, it would be very different if, instead of 40 million non-Americans bringing their genetic traits, societal behavioral patterns, and cultural traditions into the country - we can no longer reasonably describe it as a nation - there were 40 million more black and white Americans raised within the American tradition. It is not necessary to declare if change is for the better or for the worse to note that it has taken place. And with regards to the question of whether it is for the better or not, it should be readily apparent that the direction of the migrational pattern shows which society is deemed superior by everyone except those charged with protecting the more desirable one.

But what has happened has happened. That world is lost. The 53 million black and white Americans of my generation and the succeeding one are already dead. While Karl Popper argues against "historicity" and that predictions based on historical patterns are no better than soothsaying, I think he is wrong and the eventual consequences are readily apparent. We have always known that the USA would eventually fall, since all kingdoms and empires do in time. But now, we can be reasonably confident that we know why, if not necessary when.

WND column

Education is not an investment

Bill Gates dropped out of college. Steve Jobs dropped out of college. Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of college. These famous examples don’t mean that dropping out of college is a blueprint for great financial success, but it does serve as sufficient proof that a college degree is not a necessary item in having a successful career, much less living a successful life.

Courage of a president

I have to admit, I always suspected it.

Newsweek names Obama 'The First Gay President'

I guess that means Michelle is actually a man, right?

At the Black Gate

After reading through the various responses to my post two weeks ago, some of which were insightful and intelligent, others perhaps a little less so, I found myself concluding that I had probably gone a little too far in the process of defending historical authenticity against Daniel Abraham’s charge that it is not an effective defense against charges of insufficient strong women, excessive white people, or a surfeit of sexual violence. Upon further reflection, I don’t think it is correct to conclude that a work of fantasy will necessarily be improved by additional historical authenticity. Would The Chronicles of Narnia be improved by religious schism or removing the historically ludicrous notion of four siblings ruling simultaneously? No, I can’t honestly say it would. Would Abraham’s own The Long Price Quartet be improved by making the imperial Asian culture utilize a historically authentic kanji/hànzì system of writing that would be all but unintelligible to the various warlike Caucasian surrounding it? No, I don’t think so.

On the other hand, I still think Abraham goes too far in dismissing the importance of historical authenticity with regards to works that are billed on the basis of, as he says, their ability to “show medieval life the way that (we’re pretending for the sake of argument) it really was.” It is highly probable that George R.R. Martin wouldn’t have gone so far off the rails with his most recent two books in A Song of Ice and Fire had he stuck a little more closely to the historical Wars of the Roses and the violent struggle between York (Stark) and Lancaster (Lannister). Historical authenticity does not require that every fantasy novel concern itself with the life and times of Peasant John and his epic battle to save his diarrhea-stricken pig, after all, only that the author make a reasonable attempt to either a) get things reasonably correct, or b) provide the reader with some modicum of a rationale for departing from the realm of historical fact and plausibility.

Read the rest at the Black Gate.

Veterans of an endless war

First, a Happy Mother's Day to the many mothers out there. However, I think it is long past time to change the emphasis of the holiday, from one that is a saccharine and sentimental celebration of biology to one that honors a vital societal contribution. It is rightly said that the future belongs to those who show up for it. Mothers are the builders of the future, and civilized mothers are nothing less than the core defenders of civilization. Without mothers, all the science and technology and art of Man is pointless and without value.

Mothers risk their lives and sacrifice their petty desires to ensure that Man will survive one more generation. Their unique and precious gift to the species should never be overlooked, much less belittled, as a woman who marries, bears children, and raises them with her husband is doing the single most important thing she can possibly do as a human being. Everything else is of lesser import. So, in addition to the breakfasts in bed, the cards, the flowers, and so forth, don't forget to remember that she is more than the mother of your children, she is a decorated veteran in civilization's never-ending war against barbarism and the void.

Famous last words

Shockingly, professional journalists doubt that computer programs can replace their journalistic output:

Kevin Smith, head of the Society of Professional Journalists Ethics Committee, says he laughed when he heard about the program. "I can remember sitting there doing high school football games on a Friday night and using three-paragraph formulas," Smith said. "So it made me laugh, thinking they have made a computer that can do that work." Smith says that, ultimately, it's going to be hard for people to share the uniquely human custom of story telling with a machine.

"I can't imagine that a machine is going to tell a story and present it in a way that other human beings are going to accept it," he said. "At least not at this time. I don't see that happening. And the fact that we're even attempting to do it -- we shouldn't be doing it."

It's going to be interesting to see how quickly the white collar workers change their tune once they understand that white collar automation has been eliminating their jobs nearly as fast as blue collar automation eliminated blue collar jobs two generations ago. We've seen the same arguments every time, from stock brokers to bank tellers and everything else, but the arguments keep getting blown away in the face of improving technology and poor human performance. Does anyone really think that a computer can't fill in the blanks as effectively as the average left-liberal journalist?

Forget news, I mean, how hard would it be to write a program that produced columns indistinguishable from Maureen Dowd's commentary? After all, it's a simple matter of scouring the Associated Press for a) a reported problem and b) a Republican's name, then producing a few snarky spins on the latter while blaming (a) on (b).

RAF heroics

I don't care if it's true or not, it's just funny:

[Y]ou can hardly eff and blind when addressing a leading independent school such as Brighton College. Not unless you happen to be a war hero like Douglas Bader, who reputedly treated the girls of Roedean or Cheltenham Ladies’ College (the uncertainty hints at urban myth, but we’ll let that pass) to a story of airborne derring-do in which one Fokker appeared on his tail, another Fokker attacked him from above… and so on, until the headmistress tried to staunch the pubescent giggling with: “Gels, I should perhaps explain that the, ahem, Fokker was a Second World War German fighter plane.” “Madam, that may very well be,” so legend has Bader responding. “These buggers were in Messerschmitts.”