Tuesday 3 November 2015

USA == SJW

Just dumped a nice provocative comment over on John C. Wright's excellent blog
http://www.scifiwright.com/2015/11/barbarian-troglodyte-morlock/#more-14809

This thought provoking article details the three stages of progression of the modern disease whence a person might descend into SJWdom...

1) Degradation of faculty of reason, resulting in a solipsistic outlook
2) Degradation of notions of authority, leading to nihilistic obsessions with power
3) Degradation of ability to make moral distinctions, leading to inversion of the natural instincts of self-sacrifice into destructive projection.

Hop on over and have a read - riveting stuff.

For some reason, this inspired me to get on one of my favourite hobby horses, which is that we Europeans often get blamed for every kind of censorious collectivist movement ever to have graced the planet we live on.  Not quite sure what John did to merit being the target for this particular outpouring, but I suppose we have to take inspiration wherever we find it.  I'm expect if he has the time to respond it will be characteristically both amusing and challenging.

Here is the post.  The basic premise being that the USA was founded by SJWs:

I agree entirely about the political left being the home of mob-rule. That said, it is rather puzzling as to why the Founding Fathers pressed ahead with their utopia if they were far sighted enough to anticipate its downfall. It was certainly always obvious enough to us on the other side of the pond. Sadly, it has rather queered our own pitch into the bargain.

Apologies if I’m treading unceremoniously on the cherished founding myths of your glorious empire (oops, I mean nation) but look at it from our point of view for a moment:

The New York based MSM of the time whips the masses into a frenzy by appealing to popular sentiments about freedom/liberty with an affirmative action policy that consists of chanting "No taxation without representation". In reality, this is a figleaf for their real motivations of anti-militarism (seven years war) and tax avoidance. (stamp act) History vindicates the morality of the British position (Napoleon / French Revolution / Guillotine Deicides / The Terror). The French sponsors are so chuffed with the result that they send over a massive atheist statue to welcome in loads of new immigrants to cuck the remaining English Christians out of existence. The proto-Marxist Oppressor/oppressed rhetoric culminates in a gang of leftists blacking up as mohawks, going on a rampage & causing millions of dollars worth of damage to private property, needlessly dumping hundreds of casks of valuable tea in the river.

Sound familiar?

I suppose we can be thankful that the modern SJW is far more conscious of the problematic nature of cultural appropriation of indigenous groups.

Can’t we...?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Dolezal

It all does sound rather familiar, doesn’t it?

Wednesday 28 October 2015

We are all Social Justice Warriors

Reposting a rather lengthy comment that I posted over at
Dialogue with a moderate


Surely the defining difference between Social & Antisocial Justice is that the former is based purely on shifting alliances whereas the latter has a fixed, external, absolute point of principle.
The strengths of the two movements are therefore respectively:

SJW: Nihilistic, solipsistic, values based on narrowly focussed clusters of identity politics with overlapping shared interests, able to score tactical victories by agile adaptation & forging powerful alliances to overwhelm defences.

Anti-SJW: Idealistic, outward looking, from a broad range of interests, based on shared ideals, able to form genuine grassroots defensive reactionary opposition & coherent offensive strategies when properly oriented.

Correspondingly, each has their own weaknesses.

SJW: Directionless, easily divided.  Supremacy in the hierarchy is decided by any given unit's usefulness to any given group at any given time.  Usefulness which in turn depends on unsustainable levels of intensity which hinders the ability to develop a cohesive strategy and consistently apply it.

Anti-SJW: Hypocritical, dogmatic, liable to procrastinate & pontificate.  The exacting standards of the abstract ideals makes real world leaders difficult to find & easy to attack on principle.  Supremacy within the hierarchy may be accorded on the basis of effectiveness.  Whereas something other than self-interest may define what that is, it may in turn be at odds with aforementioned principle.  Distraction techniques also work well against something that is implied rather than present.

Assuming the above to be true, it is safe to say that any attempts at comparison of the tactics SJWs use against the strategic wisdom inherent in the traditions and ideologies they seek to replace are doomed to failure, not just as false equivocations, as argumentum ad temperentiam / populam / baculum, nor even are they destined to fall on the incompetence of their syllogisms. 

 

Such comparisons are simply category error.  Tactics != Strategy

SJWs can have no coherent strategy other than destruction.  

No offensive tactics are permissible to the Anti-SJW for any purpose other than defence.


To move away from the topic of strategy vs tactics for a moment, contemplate the nature of each.  SJWs seek to divide, to isolate, to polarise.  Those that oppose them draw on the shared values that civilisation is built upon.

Spoiler Warning:  All the preceeding verbiage was of course foreplay to enable me to spout off some half baked moderate wishy washy, namby pamby, half baked "Jesus loves" you crap that has been brainwashed into me by the evil 17th century Kabballist Spinoza, so if you have only made it this far in the hope of being able to get off on how you would shoot me in the face if I tried to get in the way of your constitooshnl right to unload your ordinance at dangerous enemy nationals, it was worth the wait.

I can understand that some envy the ruthlessness that defines the SJW crowd, but it rather baffles me why anybody would want to ape their ruthless divisiveness.  Whilst a house divided is a great place to throw a party, it isn't somewhere that I would like to live.

I don't look at intersectional Feminists in awestruck admiration at the purity or versatility of their polemic (cant even decide which it is...) when they move to ban other feminists from speaking for suggesting that other feminists with whom both parties disagree may be worthy of debate.  I rightly consider it to be a manifestation of insanity.

Let's call it "meta-conflict".  Do you really want to get into that?  Whilst we can agree that swift furious rage driven application of blunt force trauma is an appropriate response to discovering somebody in flagrante delicto non consensuallissimus with your nearest and dearest or a young person, it strikes me as rather unproductive to insist on the excommunication of anybody who might tolerate the existence of a personage guilty of insufficient enthusiasm for instant execution of anybody who failed to prevent the act.

SJWs is as SJWs does.  The moment you take up arms in somebody else's defence you declare "W"ar in the name of "J"ustice on behalf of a member of "S"ociety.  That somebody may be a member of your family, a neighbour, a fellow countryman, a member of your ethnic race, or the human race.  The difference comes down to a combination of whether you actually represent the wishes or interests of the people you purport to defend, along with proportionality of the solutions you propose relative to the magnitude of the problem in something other than your own imagination.  The difference also lies in good part on whether you are able to apply some degree of fairness and equality in how you proscribe transgressions.  Whether you can put yourself in the shoes of the accused and ask how you would have acted in their position.

And yes, that does lead onto "I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me, I'm just a poor boy from a poor family...."  Every ideology contains the seeds of its own destruction in this fallen world after all.

Wednesday 7 October 2015

SJW Entryism and The Six Attitudes to Justice

The previous post "The Comparative Merits of Tolerance" catapulted this abandoned blog from literally two hits (both mine...) to over 1,000 views overnight!  It was inspired by reading a Kindle book called "SJW's Always Lie" by Vox Day, which explains how a kind of Equality & Human Rights industry has evolved in recent years, which has become known for manifestations of corruption, bigotry, nepotism and intolerance that can easily exceed the corruption, bigotry, nepotism and intolerance that it purportedly exists to oppose - not just against the predilictions and prejudices of the masses, but even against the minorities it claims to defend.  These corrupt individuals are sardonically termed "Social Justice Warriors" - the irony being that they are typically Antisocial Cowards who make a mockery of the very idea of Justice.

The post iterated through six possible attitudes that one may assume in relation to any given idea.  They were:

Rejection
Tolerance
Submission
Denialism
Acceptance
Celebration


The lively discussion sparked off by the post merited a followup.  The descriptions provided were oversimplified & some of the terms ambiguous, but the bulk of the disagreement appeared to assume value judgements were attached to the terms, whereas what I was mostly trying to do was describe the various attitudes one might take towards any given idea that might be socially controversial, independent of its truth / moral correctness.

Today, I would like to set out how I believe these six positions relate to another concept introduced by Vox Day - Entryism, which has its roots in the collapse of Marxian ideas, with the rise of thinkers such as Gramsci, the Frankfurt School Critical Theorists & Rudi Dutschke who, having long abandoned the idea of revolution as a logical/scientific/economic inevitability, urged adherents onto a "long march through the institutions of power".  Subsequent thinkers such as Saul Alinsky built on this (so I'm told - TL;DR).

I'm going to lay out a slightly expanded definition of each position, a precis of what strategy / tactics SJWs use against people & groups who assume this attitude, symptoms that suggest this is the attitude currently assumed by the target & possible lines of defense against the lines of attack described.  For the purpose of clarity - the idea(s) and/or the attitude(s) taken in response can be moral, or immoral.  The idea(s) being asserted can be true, the ideas being asserted can be false.  It is possible to be in support or opposition to ideas in any of these categories, either from a position of principle or self-interest.  Likewise it is possible to support, permit, or oppose such ideas both willingly, or unwillingly, either voluntarily or from coercion.

This post has a dual aim, which is not to proscribe my own views (inevitable, some would argue...) but to arrive at a clear definition of the six attitudes themselves, which can hopefully then be (re?)attached to the terms themselves in our common English language to give some much needed clarity & hopefully raise the level of the debate in general.  As mentioned, I suspect the terms themselves may currently be infected with newthink/doublethink/badthink.  Some argued yesterday that they have been since the 15th century...

Rejection

Definition

One of the points of entry - for the sake of deciding which way is up and which way is down, lets call it the bottom.  All rather arbitrary, as rejection of one thing could be said to imply, or at least indicate compatibility with, celebration of its opposite.  Let's view it from the perspective of the SJW's, since we are trying to get inside their OODA.  This is when somebody:

Mentally / morally rejects SJW idea(s) and also physically (bodily, economically, politcally, etc.) opposes them.


Symptoms

Unified purpose promotes decisiveness.
Freedom of conscience / expression sub-optimal.
Able to unabashedly indulge in elitist practices to secure the best talent.
Perception / understanding of the strategies and motivations of opponents may be impaired by groupthink.
SJW Virtue signalling by qualified agreement.  (Yes, but what about xyz...?  Well ok, but what if abc...?  On the other hand...?  Not as bad as xxx...?)
Preferred discipline = Repression (Not act on, or publicly express the idea)

SJW Attack Strategy

Get foot in the door by appearing moderate & attempt to bring in fellow travellers
Denounce opposing actions as being "extreme", "unfair", "intolerant" & move to eliminate their possibility by imposing / modifying constitutions, codes of practice, etc to promote more equal treatment.

SJW Attack Tactics

 RANK UP (+1) - Proselytise the value of "equality" in the context of human / natural / god given rights, to argue for equal treatment.
 RANK UP (+1) -  Dissembling minimisation of responsibility for "unintended", "unforseeable" or "unavoidable" consequences to relegate the idea to the private domain & remove the need for opposing action  (bonus points if you can pin them on the other side!  See: {1} SJWs always lie)
FLIP SUPPORT (+2) - Employ judicial activism by a) using restrictions and penalties from existing legislation against those it is intended to protect and b) creatively re-interpreting the meaning of repressive legislation to be the opposite of the one originally intended.
CONVERSION (+3) - Push "phobia" narrative to pathologize persecution as manifestation of internal repression i.e. "In Denial".  Acceptance / Celebration being the only other valid responses.

Defenses

WIN - Escalate rejection to include all positions of meta-support for people who don't sufficiently oppose others expressing the potential possibility to theoretically discuss the idea, thereby eliminating it for all eternity.  If you get here, you probably are an SJW, btw... (WIN/FAIL)
HOLD - Appeal to the higher principle or purpose of the organisation.  I.e. Gaming journalism / Science fiction writing / God.
HOLD - Avoid the trap of being drawn in to defend the indefensible (i.e. massively disproportionate responses)
HOLD - Expose the motivations behind the deceit, as well as the deceit itself.
HOLD - Remain authoritative - avoid alarmism.
HOLD - Highlight proportionality / false equivocation in "yes, but what about" virtue signalling.
RETREAT (+1) - Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.  Consider tolerance from a tactical perspective, if pressure brought to bear is unsustainable.

Tolerance

Definition


When an individual or organisation mentally / morally disagrees with SJW idea(s) in a physically passive way.  

This attitude can be assumed out of principled acceptance of individual sovereignty & the right to exercise free choice, or out of feelings of powerlessness, a prudent / pragmatic sense that external damage will be negligible or acceptable, or out of neglectful indifference to manifest evil.  Tolerance is the battleground.  SJWs reject the concept, but embrace the term to describe celebration (often forced!).  Opponents also reject the term - perhaps in part due to its equation with acceptance, but also the concept more generally as an effective means of dealing with SJW entryism.

Symptoms

Deliberative approach to decisiveness
Able to attract a wider range of talent & therefore grow larger.
Freedom of conscience / expression maximised
Broadmindedness may veer into procrastination & philosophizing, but common sense still rules.
SJW Virtue signalling by broadcast criticism & disapproval of core values
Preferred discipline = Abstention (Express the ideas, but do not act on them)

SJW Attack Strategy

Promotion of "equal opportunities" narrative, built on established equal rights narrative.
Codify "Best" practices into constitutions, etc.

SJW Attack Tactics

HOLD - Heavy use of "Thin end of the wedge" & "slippery slope" arguments when attempting to promote "unbalanced" ideas
HOLD - Refusal to defend statements when criticised, preferring instead to retreat to within the safety of the victimhood narrative.  (See: {2} SJWs always double down)
RANK UP (+1) - Promotion of victimhood narratives to galvanise support
RANK UP (+1) - Training to identify previously unseen effects, requiring remediation.
CONVERSION (+3) - Nihilistic equivocation / "Moral Relativism" Double down on denial of links between causes and effects when it comes to unintended consequences of redistributionist ideologies, knock on effects, tolerance of the intolerable, etc, to present the idea as an equally acceptable, private domain, valid worldview.  Explain away any persistent negative associations that remain as inevitable result of marginalisation. Heavy equivocation commences at the first sign of weakening of any moral resolve.

Defenses

RANK DOWN (-1) - Reject virtue signalling parties who are not aligned with core values, especially if attempting to subvert the spirit of tolerance to intolerant ends (intolerant of intolerance)
RANK DOWN (-1) - Adopt an equal opportunities approach to penalties and sanctions against attempts to exploit victimhood narrative, to be the same as would be given in cases of actual
victimisation. (intolerant of intolerance)
HOLD - Contextualise the indefensible in relation to indefensible actions from the other side. (Under extreme caution...)
HOLD - Underline the subjective nature of equal rights by highlighting examples of individuals / groups whose equal rights the SJW opposes.
HOLD - Highlight unfavourable comparisons between intolerances of the SJWs favoured groups, against tolerance from the opposed group.
RETREAT (+1) Minimise ideological association & sever links with indefensible fringes of the group under attack. (Intolerant of intolerance - submissive version)

Submission

Definition

The target still opposes the principles of the idea(s), at least in the main.  However, they now begin to support it.  Motivations for assuming this position are similar to those for tolerance.  Once again, you can submit to a true idea or you can submit to a false idea.  A moral or an immoral proposition.

Submission occurs once the "wisdom" of the SJW ideas has permeated to the point that an expectation is set.  This is the critical point at which favourable opinions are starting to form - but
crucially, when brooding resentments can also secretly burn.  At this point the target is:

Mentally / Morally against (mostly) the SJW idea(s), but now engaged in supporting them under conscientious, commercial, governmental, or social pressures.

Symptoms

Routine spouting of meaningless platitudes in everyday communication
Decisiveness impaired by additional imperatives
Overall reduction in freedom of conscience / expression.  Impaired for majority / expanded for a minority.  Humour still possible.
Able to retain highly skilled employees who are willing to be submissive, but correspondingly whose talents may be misdirected.
Broadmindedness gives way to censoriousness.  Internal conflicts lead to chaos and confusion.
SJW Virtue signalling by extolling the glorious, progressive, inevitable nature of the changes.  Feelgood vibes to smooth the conversion process & extreme nervousness to Feelbads to avoid triggering resentment.
Preferred discipline = Contrition (Act on the idea, but apologetically)

SJW Attack Strategy

Highlight inequalities of outcome as failures of the equal opportunity policies.
Promote the supporting value of Diversity in its place.

SJW Attack Tactics

RANK UP (+1) - Codes of conduct to include mandatory reporting of "discrimination"
RANK UP (+1) - Courses to highlight unconscious prejudices
RANK UP (+1) - Capitalise on the abandonment of evidence based decision making & push forwards to abolish evidence based reasoning.
RANK UP (+1) - Sensitivity training to identify the negative impacts of "banter" and "humour"
CONVERSION (+3) - "The Big Lie".  (See: {2} SJWs always double down).  As Goebbels discovered, sustained inculcation from an all out, cross platform, total saturation assault, presenting a unified message silencing out all dissent, can be quite effective in resolving crises of conscience in favour of the new status-quo.

Defense

RANK DOWN (-1) - Relentless mocking / ironic use of the TLAs, newly fashioned & re-appropriated terms, newthink, buzzwords, terminology & ideas in general.
RANK DOWN (-1) - Promotion of the many benefits freedom bestows on individuals and societies
RANK DOWN (-1) - Explanation of the counterproductive effect reducing free expression has on the ability to combat bigotry
RANK DOWN (-1) - Explanation that offence is not an offence.  Offence is taken, not given.  Codifying it rarely reduces its power to offend
RANK DOWN (-1) - Quotations from historical figures favoured by SJWs against patronising minorities, pandering to sensibilities, against "Great White Saviour" memes.
RANK DOWN (-1) - Present statistics demonstrating the negative economic effects of subsidising bad choices & bad behaviour and the negative social effects of lowered standards.
RANK DOWN (-1) - Proportionality over Principle.  Erode support by prioritising pragmatic proportionality (of negative vs positive effects) over abstract egalitarian principles
FLIP SUPPORT (-2) - Principle over Proportionality.  Turn opposition to negative effects / outcomes into a principled stance.
FLIP SUPPORT (-2) - A massive (rhetorical!) shit on the celebration cake.  Spirited defence to inspire those remaining to resist.  Paint the bleakest possible picture of their desired future to kindle the embers of resentment.  This is the point at which free speech matters most.

Denial

Definition

This describes the stage at which the SJWs take over their host, which is probably the most self-destructive phase & also the one where SJW attacks are at their most vociferous.  SJWs have now become the public facing "conscience" of the body/org & are able to control and direct its "core values".   Re-tasking its purpose cannot come yet, as the body/org's "soul" is still digging in & opposing the ideas. 
Though it might seem counterintuitive, "progressive" ideologies often move backwards.  Two things reverse the active support that was achieved in the previous submissive phase.  (often simultaneously, to curious effect...)
1)  SJW rules do not apply to SJWs who are somehow allowed to transcend moral consistency and the laws of logic.  The values attached to the founding imperative are allowed to dominate external expression, to allow the host to survive.  (See: {3} SJWs always project)
2) Day zero is declared.  The previous tepid support of SJW values via internal policies is recategorised as mere window dressing.  A kangaroo court appraisal of the body/orgs members/employees/customers/owners in light of their historical opposition marks them as having been violent oppressers all along.  Repudiation is insufficient - serious amends must be made.  (See: {2} SJWs always double down)

Mentally / morally ascribing to SJW ideas, whilst simultaneously opposing them


Symptoms

All encompassing, all defining anger
Ruthlessness in relation to individual rights.  Expectation to work long hours, sacrifice family time, etc.  Employees for organisations fighting for rights have no rights themselves.  Proliferation of unpaid intern positions at fair pay proponents.  Low employment of women / minorities in orgs promoting feminism / racial equality, etc.
Able to recruit from a diverse range of competences.  Policies do not yet prevent elitist recruitment.
Decisiveness heavily impaired due to conflicting narratives, giving the loudest individuals the advantage.
SJW Virtue signalling by pointing and shrieking, labelling, chanting slogans.
Preferred discipline = Separation (Act on idea(s) without remorse, or the need to justify actions)

SJW Attack Strategy

Minor things such as actual oppression are subjugated to suppression of badthink
Physical & moral relegation of the body/orgs founding values and members & productive apparatus to the status of exploitative oppressors.  Elevation of the "downtrodden" to the status of rightful inheritors.

SJW Attack Tactics

Lots of obstructive busywork.  Insistence on risk assessments, disparate impact analysis, accessibility studies, health and safety, where they may not be required.
RANK UP (+1) - Principle over Proportionality.  Promote a principled opposition to outdated, traditionalist defences against the SJW incursion.  Minimise any perceived associations of protective influence from the traditional attitudes against negative outcomes.
FLIP SUPPORT (+2) - Proportionality over Principle.  Build on the established principle by asserting that support for the idea will result in mostly positive outcomes by minimising associations of the idea with potential negative outcomes.
FLIP SUPPORT (+2) - "Outing" opponents as secret supporters is the fast track from rejection, to denial, to celebration.  SJWs are known to feign both attitudes in order to give the illusion of the opposition having a veneer of truth that has since been repudiated.

Defense

Never apologise.  Ever.  Easier said than done however, as those in the darkness of denial are often too dim to see any possibility of light.
Mutual moral support.  By this stage, the chances of having to defend the indefensible are practically zero.  Any genuine (non SJW compliant) bigotry has likely already been purged.
Assume any outrages to be false flag / staged / agitprop until proven otherwise
HOLD SUPPORT - Disown any pretence of objectivity on the part of those staged conversions.  Dig into their past to show evidence of historical SJW posturing.  This kind of thing doesn't come out of the blue.
CONVERSION (-3) - "Purge".  Do not show compassion to erstwhile comrades who defect.  It is highly likely that their repudiation of bigotry will turn out to be a sham repudiation of genuine bigotry, making them a liability for the other side.  Kick them out and call them out, simultaneously purging your own ranks and discrediting the SJW narrative.

Acceptance

Definition

The likelihood of modern organisations over a certain size to be accepting of the more easily digestible parts of the SJW canon is probably as high as the improbability of them being able to navigate their many internal contradictions (and remain accepting of opposing views) and resist their more objectionable goals (and thereby slide into supporting them).  At this stage:

In principled (mental/moral) agreement with the idea(s) as a position worthy of equal consideration, whilst not actively or knowingly engaged in behaviour that supports or opposes.


Symptoms

Founding values will at least be on a par with SJW values in all policies, visions, constitutions, etc.
Analagous to the red giant phase in stellar evolution, organisations in this phase may still be able to attract elite talent through sheer size, but will eventually collapse under their own gravity.
Decisiveness varies according to who is in charge.  Strong leaders may be able to carry large numbers of people with them
SJW Virtue signalling by competitive hand-wringing, pearl-clutching and generally spouting stop-word laced platitudes. Slogan wearing common.
Preferred discipline = Assertion (Acting insistently & openly expressing the idea(s) freely)

SJW Attack Strategy

Emphasise structural oppressive disadvantages that need addressing
Subjugation of the body/org's intended purpose to promotion of SJW values

SJW Attack Tactics

RANK UP (+1) - Capitalise on established belief in the idea(s) by reframing the targets acheivements as having been built on the back of unfair advantage.
RANK UP (+1) - Promote the idea of "Privilege" leveraging individual guilt to galvanise action.
RANK UP (+1) - Promote "microaggression" as a thing that needs dealing with

Defense

RANK DOWN (-1) - Quarantine.  Physical, economic, social, whatever.
RANK DOWN (-1) - Targeting of individuals / actions under the Alinsky model.
RANK DOWN (-1) - Orchestrated prank capitulations to SJW demands work best at this stage, having sufficient credibility & seeming to be on the cusp of support.
CONVERSION (-3) - point to evidence that the idea(s) have negative effects.
GAME OVER.  INSERT COIN - Escape. Start again, build your own platforms.  Fight back.

Celebration

Definition

Can simply be described as:

Belief in the cause, plus active support

Symptoms

Endless successions of scandals and internal purges.
Directionless "charismatic" leaders
Heavily propagandised promotion by MSM, Public sector, NGOs
Talent pool restricted to SJWs
SJW Virtue signalling by competitive offence taking, usually on somebody else's behalf, typically over imperceptible, imagined or manufactured wrongdoings.  Slogan wearing pervasive, complemented by competitive wierdness, particularly in physical appearance culminating in highly conformist anti conformity tribal markings.
Preferred discipline = Domination (Act on the idea(s) defiantly, trespass on the privacy and natural rights of others)

SJW Attack Strategy

Attack is complete.  SJWs now search for other hosts to infect before the present one dies.
Identify external sources of subsidy via government / media lobbying and campaigns.

SJW Attack Tactics

WIN - Exclusively employ persons whose histories are sufficiently tainted as to assure their SJW conformity and compliance.
HOLD - Lobby for the necessity for public funding by maintaining a high media profile based on perpetual outrage
HOLD - Lobby for corporate sponsorship by attacking every public utterance as being an offence, not just to the "injured" party, but to all mankind.
WIN - Attack life support systems (revenue streams, memberships, etc.) of entities showing the least signs of resistance.
WIN - Judicial and legislative activism to codify support for the position for all peoples, for all time.  Preferably before any negative effects are noticed.

Defense

FAIL - Accept your martyrdom with dignity in the hope it may serve as an inspiration to the remnants of humanity (FAIL/WIN)
RANK DOWN (-1) - pressure corporate sponsors to remove support.  Mobilise employees/members/customers to look for alternatives.
FLIP SUPPORT (-2) - "Black Knighting".  Support those poor souls who happen to be actual members of whichever group SJWs are coming to the rescue of.  Many will be caught in the crossfire, having "internalised the oppresive narrative" (see: {2} SJWs always project.  In this case projecting their projection...)
CONVERSION (-3) - Smackdown.  Meet every ludicrous assertion with a wall of ridicule, making it painful to promulgate the idea.  Rhetorical suppression of oxygen to express the idea(s) creates space for dialectical demonstration of their falsehood.  Fast track goes from celebration -> submission -> rejection
WIN - identify and shut down public sources of funding by highlighting conflicts of interest, nepotism, abuse of charitable status, macabre grotesqueness and behaviour / attitudes generally offensive to public morals.




In a followup post, I will try to explain how all this relates to differences in information speed in society, who benefits from those differences & how the system can be
improved.

Learn Russian in 1 Year using free internet resources

About a year ago, I thinks to myself why not learn Russian.  I mean - why not, I sez.  It isn't exactly as though I can stop the #ImminentFinancialCollapse or anything & whilst property ownership is great 'n that, strikes me that considering Von Mises knew that the imposition of a zero rate of interest heralds the consumption / destruction of the production structure about 160,000,000 years ago, it doesn't take a genius to work out that the next step will be widespread confiscation of everything that is nailed down by progressive governmentals, and of loosely nailed down stuff that can be prised off by the ever swelling legions of unemployables.  In other words, accumulation of physical capital is not just going to lead to disappointment following its eventual confiscation, but will also likely mark you apart as a member of the oppressor class.  This leaves accumulation of mental and spiritual capital as the only choice for the sensible investor.

OK children, now that we are all settled down, it's time to learn Russian.  No talking at the back...

I'm absolutely serious.  With a bit of creative thinking and by using a variety of free internet resources, you can pick up a good command of the Russian language in 1-2 years without breaking too much of a sweat, or ever parting company with a single pound note, or entering a classroom of any kind.

Prerequisites: 

 - functioning brain.  

Chances are that if you are able to read this far without glazing over and needing to check FB, it is up to the task.  Mensa IQ not required.  Don't worry, if you are starting to glaze and are reaching for the youtubes - they have lolcats in Russia too, you will be relieved to hear!

 - ability to memorise stuff.

Rote.  Learning.  Works.  Sorry.  Look, this is a prerequisite, I'm afraid.  That doesn't mean that if you don't have it you should stop.  It will likely just add a couple of years, during which time you'll learn something even more awesome - the ability to remember stuff!  Chances are you can already remember your name, the words to God Save The Queen, any number of dreadful pop songs, half a dozen film quotes, Monty Python Sketches, jokes (OK, they are hard to remember...), football players names, and so on.  All the techniques I list here can be used to learn things in your own native language.  You just need to be bothered to do it...

 - commitment. 

 You have to want to do it.  If you just want to impress hot Russian chicks with a few phrases and then let your bodies do the talking, be honest with yourself and do just that.  A Google search for "common Russian phrases" will get you everything you need - this post isn't for you. OTOH, if you have reached the end of the Internet and need some other internets to read, then Russian internets might provide a pleasant diversion from the endless pointing and shrieking in the Anglosphere.  If you can commit to an hour or two most days, either during work breaks or evenings, doing all of the things you would normally do - listening to music, watching films, reading books, poems, etc, but in Russian, you will be amazed at how quickly a garbled stream of interminable consonants and alien looking letters becomes vaguely recognisable words, which then become almost comprehensible.  Don't expect too much, allow your subconscious to do the work...

- interest

It could be that you already have an interest, business or personal, that you want to pursue.  Or could be that, like me, you just have a vague interest in the music and culture that you wish to explore.  Regardless, there are plenty of things that will no doubt grab your attention if you have any interests in anything at all

- good lateral thinking / boredom avoidance strategies.

Chances are that modern life has already prepared you for this, with the thin gruel of aesthetic, intellectual, moral, mental and spiritual pablum that it attempts to force feed you on a daily basis.  Unless, that is, you have decided to join the various hierarchies and classes of the perpetually outraged and embrace SJW-hood, in which case chances are you don't value a thing as bourgeois as genuine intellectual pursuits anyway...

In case you haven't guessed, this isn't an all inclusive, comprehensive education system that places a high value on things like diversity or inclusiveness, but rather an elite pursuit based on rather antiquated values of dedication and hard work.  The good news is that simply knowing that it is possible to immerse yourself in a progressively more understandable series of works of various kinds will probably be enough to inspire a good number of people put off by the previous paucity of material between the empty promises of the simplistic "learn to speak Russian (I.e. order a beer) in 21 days" type courses and the dry as bones course books that typically would have to be accompanied by classroom hand-holding by a tutor to maintain the will to live.

Truth is, you have already learned one language already, so the apparatus is there.  The difficulty comes in adapting those tools to learning an entire new language.  I have disproved the commonly held assumption that you need to "immerse" yourself in a culture to learn its language - going to live there, by learning the Russian language in around 18 months in my spare time.  The other commonly held myth is that children, or adolescents learn faster.  For example, whilst I was amazed at how quickly my two year old learned to sing the periodic table of elements song by Tom Lehrer, but then again, it wasn't quicker than me!  She undoubtedly has superior recall memory, but I had visual help, being able to read the text on a piece of paper, over and over.  She has a much more creative imagination, but I have better associative memory functions.

The point I'm trying to across is that children learn language in a different way - by taking advantage of the evolutionary mechanism that has us classify certain types of behaviour "cute" when done by children that would otherwise be annoying or insulting when done by an adult; behaviours such as mimicking and endlessly repetition, for example.  Once you accept that you will likely not have any rewarding interaction in your chosen language with another person for a year or so, you will be able to get on with the enjoyable task of learning without the need for all the attention seeking clowning about or preening that you would likely end up doing if you were to try to learning by the same methods children use.

Hopefully this inspires a few people to realise that it can be done.  I will publish posts periodically on tips for learning foreign languages, with an emphasis on Russian.






(By the way - I lied.  I have a total plan to stop the #ImminentFinancialCollapse.  Watch this space for details; I will probably need some help along the way...)

Tuesday 29 September 2015

The TL;DR Manifesto

Big thanks to everybody who has taken time to peruse my posts & offered support.  I'm hoping to update this blog several times a week, which will obviously have an impact on the other vital trolling / blurking / anonymous posting that I carry out on behalf of mankind periodically; I thought it about time to put my money where my mouth is...


So yesterdays post has already put me into several hundreds of hits (too modest to say quite how many - does two count as "several"...?) which is far more than I had hoped for, in large part thanks to retweets from @VoxDay, @DickDelingpole and @HDHammer865 plus a commendation from @Jonathan_Drake.

However, no comment...

Please do give your feedback to the posts - you can be sure that I will eagerly read and cherish every single one.  Not sure if the Blog layout is too bleak, text too small, etc.  Whether the content is just way off & I should stick to tweeting pictures of animals, or just TL;DR.  I do have a tendency to go off on one & recognise that my prose needs work.  Break it up a bit, perhaps...?  Perhaps people just need time to understand that when I go off on a ramble, I will always make it back again.

So, a bit about me - office jockey of 20 year - man and boy - Austrian Economics, Ludwig V-M, Ayn Rand, Jesus Christ, Breitbart, Delingpoles, TakiMag, A.T., Voxday, English, French, German, Russian languages, Opera singer in training (for which I have been ejected from many a so-called-boozer...) Dutch Barges, Mycology, Culture Wars, New found Sci-Fi aficionado (where do I sign up for the Hugo awards...?)  Crusader for Radical Libertarianism.  Secretly quite like to own a really nice gun (W.W.J.D...?  W.G.W.J.O...?) not into drugs, or libertarians obsessed with legalisation either for that matter, but would quite like to watch Peter Hitchens do some acid.  Leader of #GamerGate though I now treat games / consoles with the same reverent fear as the dark things from a John C Wright novel, for their ability to suck away my soul.

I plan to blog about the farts of stupidity that the MSM still manage to somehow waft under our noses.  Signs and portents of the coming cataclysm.  I have been developing a number of consciousness altering ideas which collectively will create a structure that will sit on top of our existing corporate model without touching it.  This is an essential part of the strategy - leave any one piece in place for too long without support & regardless of how brilliant the idea, it will soon be assimilated into the corporate structure.

A list of upcoming blogposts planned to this end:

 - New pay as you go internet protocol.  (to break corporate monopoly, can co-exist with current infrastructure)
 - P2P land mail / freighting system.  This one is bulletproof & will increase societal resilience to economic and terrorist attacks.  Can also co-exist with current infrastructure.
 - The historical origins and imperatives of the corporate structure.
 - The internal contradictions of Socialism / Communism
 - The internal contradictions of Democratic Capitalism / Corporatism
 - Anatomy of societal decline.
 - Traditional Market indicators are Fear & Greed, Supply & Demand.  What about Intelligent Trust & Love?  These are also big motivating factors behind human behaviours.  Discuss whether these are somehow just vectors of the trad four, or separate transcendental values in their own right.
 - Replacement for copyright (government mandate to derive a monopoly from a "creative" work.  I will assert that fear of state violence is the foundations of the distributist ideologies that dominate popular media)  Greed / Love based alternative requiring no violent revolution.  You guessed it - can coexist, just like those bumper stickers.
 - Simple adversarial online heuristic tree system to replace the dominance of the Encyclopaedistes in the culture wars.  Aims to reduce the dominance of SJW / Left / Liberal bias in systems like Wikipedia. (but also the MSM in general).  HT Voxday for introducing me to the concept of the 18th century movement which probably has some resonance in contemporary culture.  Need to research this before doing the post.
 - Ways to hasten the decline of tired MSM tropes.  Previous two subjects should cover the technical aspects.  Discuss the cultural angle & activism.
 - Discussions of free market labour migration theories &
 - Alternative to the current legal system - ways to re-popularise the concept of voluntarism & common law.  Alternatives to & discussions of the outdated courts / jury systems.
 - Technical solutions to assist with the privatisation of public roads.  Discussion of legal safeguards to ensure rights of way, maintenance responsibilities, etc are upheld.
 - General discussion about the tragedy of the commons / anticommons & how technology fills the gap, whilst regulation hinders the emergency of technologies to do so.  (probably went too fast there jumping straight in with privatising public roads...)
 - Privatisation of the Police force & prison services.  Yep - for real.  (Oh - you mean to say that a police force that relies on having a spotless reputation, to be able to secure convictions, in order to stay in business is an unquestionable evil...?  As opposed to what, pray tell...?)
 - Replacement of outdated Governmental / Parliamentary systems.  I hope to popularise the term "Horse and Cart" democracy to describe the level of technology available when the current systems were implemented.  You got into your horse and cart once every four years & trundled down to the voting office to put your cross onto the ballot slip (a cross to show you were a good Christian...)  Regardless on whether you are of a dirigiste or libertarian persuasion, we can all agree that the speed of information exchange in our regulatory institutions has massively lagged behind the speed of exchange in other marketplaces.  Cui bono?  (go on - have a guess...)

Quite a lot to cover there then.  As touched upon briefly, if any one of these lovely ideas were to be introduced on its own it would inevitably be either subsumed by the corporate / government owned & driven monopolies, or could only be introduced in the absence of the others by force, or at the cost of enormous bloodshed.  Hopefully I havent missed out too many major parts.  Power / energy, most manufacturing industries, armed forces, etc.  should adapt pretty well & even gain advantage by diversifying & gaining an edge in 4GW scenarios.

Dont believe me?  Take the internet as a great example.  Whilst freedom has certainly flourished & it has overwhelmingly been a force for good, it has highlighted an inability in mainstream culture to combat threats from intolerant ideologies.  It has simultaneously been subsumed into the mire of monopolistic corporatism who now own all teh datas, all teh highways, all the infrastructure.  The decentralised system designed to protect our military infrastructure from a nuclear strike has become the cradle in which our civilian infrastructure now sits - the fine mesh holding us from falling back into dog eat dog barbarism & chaos.  It could probably be taken down by a few hundred determined fanatics armed with diesel, fertiliser, pneumatic drills, cutting tools and the right knowledge.

The Banishment of Traffic from London. A brief history of UK thoroughfares from the Romans, to the Congestion Charge, to Olympic Zil Lanes

<<Apologies - this is an ancient post from 2012.  I edited it & it has popped to the top...>>

I often cycle to work.  Some people think that makes them special, caring, intelligent types, but I mainly enjoy the exercise, the fresh air, the price, and the relative absence of B.O. from the thousands of other frustrated souls making their way to their place of toil.

There are obvious drawbacks ; the weather that we are so famous for talking about can be quite cold, wet and icy - neither of which are ideal for cycling as a person advances in years, but I pride myself on being of a fairly robust physiognomy.  Potholes and punctures are perennial problems and there are frequent opportunities to be crushed under the giant wheels of the various heavy goods vehicles which move at high speeds through the city streets.  Fact is though, I quite enjoy my 20 minute ride and so long as I avoid getting squished, I remain well ahead in terms of time, money and health.

It would be nice to have other options though, I feel.  Public transport is just so dire in London.  Slow, smelly, expensive, congested.  I wonder whether they should consider introducing a "Congestion Charge" on public transport?  Seems to have done wonders for keeping people off the roads, why shouldnt it work on the tube?  Fact is that although I can justify running an extremely modest family car after the various running costs, taxes, charges and fines, there is no way that I can justify paying £10 for the pleasure of being able to drive in to work and back.

To illustrate how hard it is, I thought that I would put up some pictures from my daily cycle in.  See if you can spot anything unusual about them.  As a clue, these were taken at around 9:15 in the morning.

View looking South from Oval Station:


View looking North from Oval Station:


View looking South past Kennington Station:


Looking North:


Turning off from Elephant & Castle roundabout:
(That busy traffic hub)


Going North up Borough High Street:


Looking South by Southwark Crown Court:


Northwards towards the Shard:


Turning off:


Through the backstreets to Tooley Street:



You may have noticed that there aren't too many cars on what you might expect to be rather busy roads. In fact, there are practically none.  This strikes me as rather strange and extremely worrying as London is supposed to be our financial capital and this particular route is one of the major arteries in.

For those who are not familiar with London roads, London is set out a bit like a dartboard.  We have three circular(ish) roads: 

Ring Road
The "Ring Road", which is a couple of miles in diameter from Tower Bridge in the East, to the Houses of Westminster in the West.  This road contains what is referred to as "The City" of London, also "The West End", plus a little bit "Sarf of the River".

North/South Circular
The "North/South Circular" roads (which aren't particularly circular in places.) These do a radius about five miles from the City/Square Mile and contain pretty much everything that can legitimately be called "London".

M25
The M25 is a wondrous modern construction, a multi-laned motorway which spans a radius 10-15 miles out. and a joy to all those who use it daily.  This road was the inspiration for Chris Rea's song "Road to Hell".  This area within is often referred to as "Greater London" and is bordered by various green belt lands, such as Epping Forest which are fantastic to cycle in.

These rings are intercepted by ten or so major arteries.  For example:

A1
The A1, which was so named because it is the first of our "A" roads.  Known as the "Great North Road", it joins London and Edinburgh, based on ancient roads built upon by the Romans, starting as Ermine Street from the gates of the wall around London and intersecting and traversing most major routes including the "Four Highways" of medieval England.  (Icknield Way, Fosse Way, Watling Street & the already mentioned Ermine Street.)  Running Northwards at about 11 o'clock, it was superceded by Lord Francis Egerton's Grand Union Canal system, Robert Stephensons London and Birmingham Railway line and finally the M1 motorway by John Laing, but still remains in place for much of the way.

A2
The A2 is probably even older and is based on another of the "Four"; the Celtic trackway known as Watling Street, later the "Dover Road", as it connects London with Dovers iconic white cliffs.  The Thames being the oldest thoroughfare, the A2 hugs her Southern bank most of the way out, past the famous Thames tunnel at Rotherhithe that brought Isambard Kingdom Brunel to fame, by being the first of its kind.  Each of the rings intercept the A2 where they cross over the river Thames to the East.  This road also connects the historic strategic naval centres of Rochester and Chatham.

A3
The A3 connects another vital centre of historic sea-power and is known as the Portsmouth road.  It has been a victim of its own success in some ways in that the area in between Portsmouth and London is extremely wealthy, no doubt as a result of the trade which came their way.  Correspondingly, much of the area is designated as "area of outstanding beauty", resulting in the poor old A3 never getting upgraded much beyond a dual carriageway.  However, money & influence going hand in hand as they do, they eventually decided that they would put a great big four mile chunk of it underground at a cost of £150,000 per metre.  A good deal of train stations in this area cater to villages or hamlets of just a few houses but are mysteriously served by fast or semi-fast non-stopping services

A4
On the topic of well heeled environs, the A4 connects Buckingham Palace to the leafier estates further out to the West via the Royal parks, and the Roman spa town of Bath.  This one hasn't had the luxury of quite such Genteel treatment as the A3 though, no doubt because of the connection to the port town of Bristol, which being near to the Atlantic probably had quite a bit of stuff coming over that we did actually want.  It got an upgrade in the shape of the M4, which ex Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott hilariously had the idea to convert into a bus lane at one stage.  Happily, one good thing that the Tories have acheived was to scrap this ludicrous scheme ten years later, but not until after they had designated it as one of the dedicated Zil lanes for the duration of the Olympic games.


And what is the point of all these ramblings, you might wonder?  Well, just to illustrate that these roads are historically busy, main lifeblood arteries to our capital city.  I love cycling on clear, empty streets, but hate the impingements on our liberty which make it possible.  I imagine that dedicated penny farthing lanes would have been seen as progress in Brunel's time, but can hardly see him ripping out railway tracks to make way for them.  Would George V have countenanced the idea of dedicated "Whiff Whaff" lanes for the dandies of the time to go rip roaring past the palace?  I should imagine that the idea of charging people around double the minimum hourly wage for the privilege of entering within a mile radius of the City would offend liberal Victorian sensibilities & invoke another Magna Carta.  The pictures that you see are taken along the routes of the A2 & A3.  The A4 is being used as a "Zil" lane for Olympic dignitaries.  Nobody can afford to use the roads, even if they are allowed to.  The tubes are crammed to bursting point and the roads are empty, but it's ok; they've painted them blue & written cycle superhighway all over them.  So that's alright then.


Monday 28 September 2015

The Comparative Merits of Tolerance

I don't suppose the recent incessant banging of the DrumOfTolerance has escaped the attention of any save the hard of thinking. At least, when not being drowned out by its more resonant sibling, "equality"...

It occurred to me that things have a tendency to engender their opposites.  I'm no anthropologist / sociologist; surely there is a buzzword or catchphrase to describe the phenomenon where prominence given to any one particular human virtue ends up bringing about its opposite, either by necessity filling a void, or by stimulating an equal and opposite reaction.

This preamble, being a roundabout way of introducing a rather neat assertion that I have assembled relating to the nature of tolerance in societies founded on Christian and Islamic systems.  In a nutshell:

I) Tolerance is a virtue intrinsic to societies built on a Christian foundation, often taken to grotesque ends by members not possessed of its corresponding virtues of modesty/humility who prefer to exploit it to flatter their moral vanity.


II) Tolerance is a necessary coping mechanism in structurally hypocritical cultures subject to endless strictures on every form of activity, as is often found in Islamic cultures, where it accordingly finds more natural limits.


To many, the first statement will sound baffling.  The second outright offensive.  Allow me to explain.  Firstly, it is worth clarifying that the ability to express intolerance of certain actions and behaviours is probably as essential as the capacity to tolerate individual differences is to the moral health of any given culture.  Which brings me to a second point of clarity relating to terms.  It merits a brief iteration of the six possible attitudes one may adopt toward any given point of principle:

Rejection = disbelief + opposition
Tolerance = disbelief + passivity
Submission = disbelief + support
Denialism = belief + opposition
Acceptance = belief + passivity
Celebration = belief + support


It is surely a sign of how progressive we have all become that we can move so nimbly between Rejection and Celebration these days, no? (Perhaps another category is needed to describe criminalising people for failing to celebrate things that were illegal less than five decades ago...?)

On the surface, celebration and rejection would appear to be the most principled stances to take on any given subject, which is no doubt why those who have an existential need to think well of themselves avail themselves of their use with such frequency.

The foundations of conservatism rest on tolerance and acceptance.  An understanding of one's own sinful/hypocritical nature and humble acceptance that one's own beliefs may not always be sufficiently well grounded in truth to impose them on all peoples for all times limits the desire to codify positive rights.  Respect for time honoured received wisdom and tradition corresponds with an urge to defend negative rights in the hope that they might conserve us from the Universal Law of Unintended Consequences.  Negative rights which, largely already codified, rarely need tinkering with anyway.  Hence Conservatism's famous maxim to never change the law "except with a trembling hand".

Submission and denialism would appear to be the least principled stances, but it is worth remembering that we are, after all, only fragile humans - lest we also fall into the ever popular trap of judging others too harshly.  Further, in addition to the social fury and scorn that can be heaped upon a person for insufficient celebration or rejection of the latest causes du jour, extrication from the tax system is no simple matter.  In the absence of being able to do so, a person has little power to withdraw their subsidy for the various public programmes to abort babies, inseminate lesbians, euthanise grannies, supply drugs/vaccines to children, etc.

The preamble done, justification for the two assertions follow:

I) Christian Tolerance

Whilst contemporary wisdom would have us believe that anybody claiming an objective external standard of truth will naturally gravitate towards a violently intolerant view of those who don't share their views with such enthusiasm, it is worth considering the central message of Christianity.  You needn't believe in the resurrection, or sky pixies to accept that a story about a God that loves the world enough to sacrifice his only son - to willingly submit to Roman barbarism allowing himself to be crucified for teaching a message of love, forgiveness, and non-judgement, has the principle of tolerance writ large in its core.  But here's the kicker.  The message of tolerance not only refuses to affirm acceptance of immorality, it actively condemns it.  Whereas "let him without sin cast the first stone" powerfully articulates the principle at work in Tolerance II, it clearly indicates a rejection - at a personal / individual level - that poses a common sense existential threat to the uncompromising, absolutist narratives of the many radical positions that (post?)modern day Social Justice Warriors unsustainably heap upon the edifice of societal tolerance raised up by the Christian system, whilst not only rejecting its truths, but also furiously denying the very possibility of any standard of external truth, so famously asserted as being findable by all willing to seek it.  To summarise then, the Christian / Post Christian traditions tend to promote tolerance based on love of your fellow sinner and a respect for a complex, abstract, but at least mostly knowable truth, and yet breed intense intolerance when they abandon humbleness and play fast and loose with facts

II) Islamic Tolerance

I can see that describing another culture as hypocritical is liable to get backs up, so I will lay out straight away that I admit entirely to being a hypocrite of sorts myself.  Therefore, I am not trying to be damning in describing the tolerance found in Islamic Cultures as being bred of hypocrisy - just pointing out that it comes from a different source.  As far as I am aware, there is no equivalent injunction to "let him without sin, etc." in Islamic scriptures, which even contain its opposite injunction to physically, verbally, mentally and spiritually oppose all forms of evil at all times. It is not a misrepresentation to say that Islam is predicated on notions of justice and obedience to Gods will over the love and honest truth seeking that Christianity emphasises in their place.  Indeed the former substitution is widely viewed as a recipe for chaos and the latter a theological absurdity - a position shared with leftists and postmodernists of all stripes.  However, none of this would cut me much slack with Islamic hardliners, as hypocrisy is regarded as something of a cardinal sin in Islam.  The Arabic term is Munafiq and whereas believers in other Abrahamic faiths are offered three options - conversion, submission, or death, polytheists and atheists two - conversion or death, only one option is open to the persistent renegade Munafiq, covered succinctly in the fourth sura by an injunction to "slay them wherever ye find them".  There is some protective ambiguity surrounding the number of chances they get and regarding the full list of behaviours that put you beyond the pale.  These two factors, plus high evidential tests, plus the odd drop of milk of human kindness probably go some way to explaining the relative paucity of initial stone castings, unless we are to believe that adultery simply doesn't exist in such societies. In addition to matters of faith being in the public rather than private sphere, there are strictures on practically every area of human activity, from clothes, to hair, associations, beard length, prayer, fasting, cloth dyes, cleaning yourself, many of which go beyond mere advice.  In summary, the mystically elusive conception of truth combined with the volume and severity of the many intolerant injunctions impingent on its adherents create a de facto tolerance not widely considered to be a good within itself that cannot therefore be stretched to accommodate whatever you want it to. Therefore, whereas opportunities to be intolerant are only limited by people's capacity to hate one another, unpopular (minority) attempts to impose tolerance will typically backfire and ironically create more intolerance.  The implication being that democracy will not typically promote greater tolerance under such systems.

Wednesday 23 September 2015

The VW "Scandal". Another non-story, brought to you by the Dead Tree press & the ever relevant BBC

Whereas I wouldn’t normally touch the BBC with somebody elses barge pole, they can be quite useful in finding out the opposite of what is actually true at any given moment & can usually (just about) be relied upon to sneak the truth in their articles somewhere down the bottom:


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34324772 


It's all another blow for the diesel market

Certainly is. Over the last decade and more, carmakers have poured a fortune into the production of diesel vehicles - with the support of many governments - believing that they are better for the environment. Latest scientific evidence suggests that's not the case, and there are even moves to limit diesel cars in some cities.



It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to spot the dissembling weasel wording in that finely crafted piece of semantic yoga, does it?  

Personally, I’d like to see the “evidence” that ever suggested diesel might be “better” for “the environment” (human environment?  Animal environment?  Biodiversity? Polar bears / Penguins?  Sea levels?  Snails & crustaceans?) in the first place.  “Latest” of course could refer to evidence from 20 years ago if there has been nothing to the contrary in the meantime.  Certainly nothing has ever led me to seriously think that diesel might save the planet.  Try cycling on Londons streets & you will instantly know which of the two types of fuel are the most noxious.  Assuming that is, you are privileged enough to encounter one of the few remaining petrol vehicles that are still allowed in the capital.  Suffice to say, a few minutes behind one of the millions of black cabs or red buses will tell you all you need to know.

The competing technologies of "SI" (Spark Ignition) and "CI" (Compression Ignition) based engines have different merits & have jostled for position in various applications over the years.  

Without going into too much detail, the SI engines tend to use lighter, shorter chains of hydrocarbons, that tend to burn very fast, giving a good power to weight ratio which translates to good acceleration.  The thinner, more volatile fuels range from single carbon methane gas, or even zero carbon hydrogen right up to the various types of "petrol" or "gasoline" that are commonly graded by their "octane" value, where "octane" refers to hydrocarbons chains of eight carbon atoms.  

Compression Ignition engines do not require a spark & instead work by compressing a fuel air mixture to a much higher pressure at which point the mixture spontaneously explodes.  The additional work required to compress the mixture & the heavier engineering required means that these engines tend to have a lower power to weight ratio, which is compensated by using more energy dense fuel - typically diesel or fuel oil with an average chain length of 12 carbon atoms or more.  This most directly equates to a greater range for any given size of fuel tank.

The issues of economy and efficiency are much harder to quantify.  If the price were the same for both fuels, diesel / CI fuels would be more economical, but of course, consumer demand, supply availability and government subsidy are the dominant factors.  Efficiency is also much harder to quantify, as the petrol engines use a less energetic fuel and although the diesel engines have a much higher theoretical efficiency at the higher compression rates, it is questionable whether the extra weight & engineering outweighs this, especially within the range of parameters that consumers would consider desireable for driving on public roads.

What I'm getting at, is that even if there is anybody left out there with any remaining fucks to give about how much invisible, non-toxic plant food they are putting out on any given Tuesday, it is unlikely that there has ever been any evidence to suggest that a diesel vehicle is any more likely to emit less carbon than its petrol equivalent into the atmosphere for any given distance.  Therefore, there must be alternative reasons for the endless shoe / gourd waving.

I would like to offer an alternative historiography of the petrol-v-diesel debate over the years.  I’ll leave the reader to decide whether my version is more sanguine or more cynical…

Late 19th c – motor car that runs on petrol invented, striking a massive blow for Christendom against the various Eastern despotisms and satrapies & freeing us from the reliance of beasts of burden (human or otherwise) and making warfighting a whole lot more exciting.
Winner: Petrol assumes the mantle of Godfrey de Bouillon

Early 20th c – various mideastern states give up slave raiding W.Europe for the Hareems and Galleys & “let” us build loads of petrochem rigs to get all that slightly stickier, but still quite lovely oil out the ground to fuel our tanks & fight our glorious wars with.  Suddenly Diesel is king.  The Nazis didn’t have any of their own & had to figure out ways of breaking down the sticky stuff in coal.
Winner: Diesel drags the modernist ubermensch out of the darkness of superstition

1950s / 60s – turns out there's loads of really nice oil in the North sea.  (clue is in the name – Brent “light” crude)  and guess what – petrol is the greatest!  The American car industry reaches a peak of sorts, consolidating into the big brands, Chevy, Corvettey, Mustangy, Cadillac.  The Ford Cortina hits the UK.
Winner: Petrol liberates man and womankind - Burn Baby, Burn!

‘70s – OPEC collectively throw their toys out of the pram in a tantrum following an epic fail attempt to use all the lovely toys they bought from the Euros / US / USSR effectively against their Israeli cousins & decide they no longer wish to share their national treasure with us.  We decide that Western Civ is far too precious to risk wasting our own limited resources racing around Romford circuit on a Friday night & plump for a nice Volvo instead.
Winner: Back on the Diesel.

‘80s – Nah – actually ripping about in an XR3i is awesome.  Bring back the petrolheads…  Our French cousins, still nervous from the oil shocks of the 70s decide that les Nukes are also awesome & could be used to generate hydrogen / short chain fuels, but not the longer chain stuff very effectively.
Winner: Petrol is good

‘90s – Collapse of USSR & Marxian theory generally deprives the handwringing classes of any kind of effective means of beating their breasts about how our material comfort is built on the backs of crushing economic exploitation of the downtrodden masses of the world, so somebody comes up with the theory that all of our lovely progress is making the weather unbearable for everybody else so that they couldn’t possibly build half decent technologically advanced societies, thereby overturning millennia of received wisdom to come to the conclusion that not just Fire=Bad, but Fire=Very Very Bad.
Winner:  Nobody - the end is nigh...

‘00s – Oooh, it is quite warm isn’t it?  And some of those exotic Bedouin types that we get all our lovely hydrocarbons from have started flying planes into skyscrapers which isn’t on at all.  Somebody comes up with the genius idea that rather than buying all their hydrocarbons & selling them loads of carbohydrates in return (i.e. food – wheat, bread, pasta, etc) we could just turn the carbohydrates into hydrocarbons & sell them stuff to fight each other with.  Biodiesel rocks!  At the same time, however, it is being said that the good stuff is running out and it begins to look like the same guys who were in charge of totalling XR3i’s on the Gallows Corner flyover on the A12 in the ‘80s have now got their hands on the wheel of the economy, so it would be great if somebody could give it a bit of a “jump start” by investing in loads of awesome tech to develop dilithium crystals & building some really cool solar stuff & windmills to get free power out of the air and that?
Winner:  Diesel (and Kumbaya)


‘10s – The pearl-clutchers belatedly realise that the poor old Orang-utans have borne the brunt of their planet saving crusade.  Turns out that there is some kind of supply and demand thing that means people are going to chop down loads of forest to grow stuff if you suddenly tell them that you need loads of it really quick.  The anointed one brings peace and harmony to the M.E. nations who enthusiastically throw off their shackles & use their newfound freedoms to embrace their traditional values of poverty, chaos and barbarism.  All the neck slicing puts even the hardcore handwringers off their falafel, even to the point of boycotting petroleum products from the Mullahs who want to nuke the little stable in Bethlehem where our Dear Lord and Saviour lay down his sweet head in a manger two thousand years ago, although they are supposedly not on the same side as the neck slicers.  (who can tell, after all…?)  The internet finally breaks the stranglehold of the Honourable Society of Barons of the Dead Tree Press & it begins to dawn on people that the economy is pretty well FUBARred and that perhaps spanking the rest of our overdraft on Enron / Solyndra / Hanjin / Ningbo renewable lottery scratchcards wasn’t the best investment & that just maybe we should allow market forces back in.  This happily coincides with the discovery of shedloads of gas that can be frack'ed out of the ground.  It also coincides with the Russians embracing the virtues of the economic system formerly only promoted by the capitalist running dogs & exporting yet more voluminous quantities of light hydrocarbons.  Recent meetings even suggest that the resurgent unreconstructed Leftists under Comrade Corbyn may be seeking a rapprochement, or detente perhaps, with their former Soviet masters.  Therefore, at present Petrol / Gas / Light chain fueled SI engines are well and truly back in vogue
Winner: Petrol / Gas / Putinoff Vodka

The future...  Anybody care to speculate what might happen if the current conflagrations with our Russian neighbours continues to escalate to the point that they no longer want to sell us all their lovely light oil & gas products & we have to rely on the millions of years worth of sticky long chained coal that our island sits atop?

Personally, I'm giving serious consideration to ditching the pushbike & going for one of those single wheeled segway things.  If only they did a petrol powered version...