679 thoughts on “The Paw of Oberon 5/4”

1. I see that, despite having nothing of any conceivable interest to say, VD has once against accomplished his only goal — made himself the center of everyone’s attention.

   Well done, VD! Dance, boy, dance!

2. “Because SJWs always lie.

   The answer to point (1) is false. Which necessarily renders point (2) false. And point (3) is false too.”

   you’re going to have to do way better than that to convince anyone here or elsewhere … but

   YOU DON’T CARE

   and since YOU DON’T CARE … why bother to deny what’s obvious?

3. rcade Sounds like you’re another person nursing a beef against the Nielsen Haydens, which makes me question whether you were ever a “former neutral.

   Well, the discussion began with the idea (not originated by me) that ‘neutrals’ would be swayed by the behaviour exhibited in public forums like this one, and Making Light. I’ve just provided examples of this very thing.

   Predictably, when one side of this debate has no ammuniton, they resort to ad hominem attacks., disqualifying etc. Predictable is boring.

   I also mentioned I move on when I’m bored.

   Yawn.

4. Just like VD isn’t interested in this topic, either, and has to post to let us all know about his disinterest?

5. delurking – ‘VD has once against accomplished his only goal — made himself the center of everyone’s attention.

   Well done, VD! Dance, boy, dance!’

   If he’s succeeded once again in being the center of attention, aren’t we who are discussing the man instead of the topics the ones who are dancing?

6. “Oh, poor Teddy. Too bad the bulk of your work shows that point (1) is very much in line with your beliefs.”

   No, Alex. It just shows that you’re not intelligent enough to follow the points being made. Or to understand the meaning of the word “inherent”.

   I note with some amusement the fact that you are trying to tell me what my beliefs are. As for the bulk of my work, I have published 13 books, more than 500 columns, and there are more than 15,000 posts on my two blogs. Not even one-half of one percent of my work even mentions race in any capacity. It’s not a particular interest of mine.

   Now, why would you make such an obviously false claim? Ah yes, SJWs always lie!

7. Not even one-half of one percent of my work even mentions race in any capacity. It’s not a particular interest of mine.

   “I f—ed just one goat, and they never let me hear the end of it.”

8. “Just like VD isn’t interested in this topic, either, and has to post to let us all know about his disinterest?”

   I’m not interested in discussing race or racism here. I didn’t bring it up. But when SJWs lie about me and attempt to spin a false narrative, I am certainly going to point out that, as usual, they are not telling the truth.

9. ‘I’ve just provided examples of this very thing.’

   And the things TB has been saying on these threads? He means every word, you know, even the transparently false ones. Honestly, he keeps going on about how his enemies don’t take him at his word, but the truly astonishing thing is that his allies pretend he never says anything at all. So what about the things he has said here has persuaded you to follow him? Because the ‘this’ side here doesn’t have leaders or spokespeople or representatives. There’s no centralised command, no unifying ideology and only a shared love of reading to unite ‘us.’ Beale has openly and plainly declared that he is marshalling his supporters in an effort to fuck with the Hugos. He’s after so-called SJWs, of whom he has solidly identified a grand total of about three, and doesn’t care about the mess he makes or the community he disrupts. He doesn’t care about the damage. Repeat. He doesn’t care about the damage. He’s said it over and over again. In practically every thread he comments on here. Now, why would a few people wrangling about the acid in the girl’s face thing turn you against this ‘side,’ given that those people represent nothing but themselves, but his comments make you want to row in behind him and give him your support? if it’s not too boring could you justify that please?

10. Hey CSAFarmer, let’s contrast what you said

    “Predictably, when one side of this debate has no ammuniton, they resort to ad hominem attacks., disqualifying etc. Predictable is boring.”

    with what Teddy said.

    “No, Alex. It just shows that you’re not intelligent enough to follow the points being made. Or to understand the meaning of the word “inherent”.”

    Mmmm, can you smell that ad hominem?

    “The Bible certainly had individuals like you pegged. As did Aristotle. You have a mind set like concrete; there is no information that can change it.”

    There he goes. Hell, even… “SJWs always lie!”

11. Seth Gorden “I f—ed just one goat, and they never let me hear the end of it.”

    I’ve raised goats, wouldn’t be that easy to f–k one. They only come into heat once a year in the fall, to get their attention you have to provide feed, if you try to mount one and they aren’t in heat they will kick you.

    Oh wait, that was my first wife. . . never mind.

12. “That’s the precise opposite of racism. That’s operating on the assumption that human beings are essentially similar, despite the observable differences in average capabilities. And the only narrative it serves is the truth.”

    If you can justify your own professed racism based on genetics as not-racism, then you are truly are an embarrassment to both the English language and to your professed Christianity. I appreciate your candor, but it’s evident that you provide nothing of value to the public discourse. Good day, & good riddance.

13. It doesn’t matter if only 1% of your works deal with race. I’m talking about when you DO talk about race it shows very clearly your belief in the inherent superiority of some races over other races.

    But, sure, keep avoiding the actual subject. It’s not like we don’t know your refusal to take responsibility for your own actions and words. Or your inability to deliver on your promises.

    Lies and broken promises is the Theodore Beale way!

14. >> It’s deleted… She must be browsing this conversation, although I don’t know why she suddenly feels the need to remove it after almost a year (perhaps she can comment, after all everyone has the right to make mistakes and it would be to her credit if she would admit it and apologize).>>

    No need for her to be browsing the conversation. You linked to her tweet. All that had to happen to alert her that it had come up is for someone here to reply to it.

    Depending on the replies, that could have been enough to make her want to delete it.

15. You know you’re not helping. It’s one thing demanding that an entire nation-state move from fragmented tribal government to modern industrial nation in a few generations, there’s a lot of moving parts there, not including the way in which ‘civilization’ (for want of a better word) was delivered.

    It’s a completely different thing to say that another American can’t be as civilized as another American because of factors that are irrelevant to their ancestry. The same crap was being said to Irish immigrants in the UK post WW2 leading to many of them essentially hiding their ancestry to get on – it’s a tad easier if you’re pasty white like everybody else.

    But, essentially, you are talking utter bollocks.

16. @yossaria, @ Alexvdl, and @rcade: Whenever I hear ‘X is racist’ disputations about non-local parties, I find myself wondering ‘If so, so what?’ That is, the speaker seems to assume the practical application of this claim is obvious, and said practical use is never disclosed.

    A for-instance: My father’s mother was bigoted against many ethnicities and was in general a nasty piece of work. I’m pretty sure people got warned ‘If you talk to Elmer about [group Y], expect to hear prolonged and hilariously ill-informed ranting’, but only if they were going to be hanging around him. Ergo, a practical use.

    Where the subject is just some guy on the Internet, the critic’s practical intention is far less clear. Some observers upon deciding ‘X is racist’ will subsequently avoid X as unlikely to have sufficient redeeming qualities, which is understandable but does little or nothing to explain the public pronouncements and (frankly, noisy and almost always suspiciously non-sequitur) debating.

    Other people in my recent experience, and I’m certainly not referring to present company, go around pronouncing ‘X is racist’, ‘Z is sexist’, ‘Æ is a religious bigot’, ‘Ø is ableist’, ‘Å is homophobic'[1], with the implication that all others who hear this pronouncement are henceforth morally obliged to shun that person. Both my wife Deirdre and I refuse to play the enforced-shunning game, on either the asking or complying end, FWIW, but it would at least be useful if requestors could please be specific when they are making such a request.

    If there are other practical uses for the ‘X is [some type of bigot]’ claim, I’m unclear on what those are.

    Rick Moen
    [email protected]

    [1] I needed three more letters after Z. Conveniently, the Danish/Norwegian alphabet has those, et voila.

17. Should have been ‘mother’s father’, not ‘father’s mother’. Apologies to the late Margot Moen (who was not at all like my mother’s father Elmer).

18. AlexvdlHey C SAFarmer, let’s contrast what you said

    “Predictably, when one side of this debate has no ammuniton, they resort to ad hominem attacks., disqualifying etc. Predictable is boring.”

    > Let me preface my responses below with a little background, so you can see Where i’m coming from. Believe it or not, I had no dog in this fight (no pun intended) a couple months ago. I had never heard of Vox Day, i just liked Larry Correia’s books, found his blog, and learned of this little contretemps you are all involved in.

    i actually posted here for the first time, to give you an honest outsider’s view. And my honest view is, you are not coming off well. The nonsense from rcade did not improve that impression.

    Here’s an analogy from my experience; i’ve been involved in community and charitable organizations for a couple decades, often in the executive. What I see, time afer time, is that the well-meaning people at the centre, over time, form cliques, and start behaving as if it is ‘their’ organization.

    The only ideas that matter are those of the insiders. Discussion, unless it is within the agreed-upon boundaries, is suppressed. This often leads to questionable decisions.The organization stultifies.

    Maybe you don’t know realize it, but that is how you seem to this outsider not in the clique. Of course I’m just one guy, i have no real influence in the matter, so take it for what its worth. But Mr. Beale’s prediction was spot-on in my case.

    Now, my responses:

    with what Teddy said.

    “No, Alex. It just shows that you’re not intelligent enough to follow the points being made. Or to understand the meaning of the word “inherent”.”

    Mmmm, can you smell that ad hominem?

    > No actually, because Point 1 waa actually false. I’ve read a lot of Mr. Beale’s postings; I can not find where he said one particular race is ‘superior’ to another. He did say he has seen evidence that some races are, on average, more intelligent than others, in the way that some races are, on average, taller than others. He explicitly stated that ‘smarter’ did not mean ‘superior’, any given individual may in fact be smarter than the average of any given race, and further, that all humans are of equal value.

    i found this fairly easily, and i think i understand the intent and context, whether I agree with all of it or not. If i was to argue against, I would investigate the matter, seek evidence to the contrary. So it’s not an ad hominem attack to suggest that someone who can’t even understand the statements themselves might not be that bright. The alternative is that Alex is deliberately misinterpreting the statements, which just makes him appear dishonest rather that dumb. Is there a third choice?

    “The Bible certainly had individuals like you pegged. As did Aristotle. You have a mind set like concrete; there is no information that can change it.”

    > Can’t comment on the Bible or Aristotle reference, don’t have the background. Re ‘mind set like concrete’, I keep seeing the same repeated and provably wrong statements here, parroted one to another; the narrative you have all apparently agreed to seems impervious to actual discussion, or facts, or logic. So, concrete.

    There he goes. Hell, even… “SJWs always lie!”

    Well, the evidence does keep piling up, as pointed out in this and my other posts. That’s why Craig stands out in his honest interpretation of other remarks made by Mr. Beale. It was singular, in several senses of the word. And I believe Mr. Beale has characterised ‘SJWs always lie’ as rhetoric.

    And Mr. Beale is not, at least, boring.

    .

19. “It’s a completely different thing to say that another American can’t be as civilized as another American because of factors that are irrelevant to their ancestry.”

    They are not irrelevant. Geographic translocation, a few years residence and paperwork does not trump human genetics.

    The slate is not blank, but neither is it immutable. The one factor people get completely wrong is time. What the blank slatists believe can be accomplished can, in fact, be accomplished, but not in a single lifetime across an entire population group. History clearly teaches that it is a long process that requires centuries.

    Far from telling you that it can’t be done, I’m telling you the only way it can be done successfully. I am, in fact, helping. I’m telling you that you’re doing it wrong.

    “But, essentially, you are talking utter bollocks.”

    Not in the slightest. I am almost certainly correct about this and pretty much every social scientist is absolutely wrong. They are obviously working on the wrong time scale. That’s why their programs and policies inevitably fail.

    “your belief in the inherent superiority of some races over other races.”

    Superiority in what regard? Every race is, on average, either superior or inferior to every other race with regards to any given metric. Only one race can be the tallest. Only one can have the largest brains. Only one can live the longest. But none are of greater human value than another. No race is inherently or intrinsically superior across the board. The very concept is observably nonsensical.

    It’s like asking if Tom Brady or Lebron James or Tiger Woods is the inherently superior pro athlete. It totally depends on whether you need a quarterback, a power forward, or someone to hit a ball with a stick.

    I assert that absolutely none of us commenting here today are inherently superior to an unborn black child with Down’s Syndrome, no limbs, a 50 IQ, and aberrant sexual orientations. I do not believe that any human being is inherently superior to another, and I therefore do not believe it’s even possible for one group to be inherently superior to another, whether that group is based on race, genetics, or geographic location.

    How many of you are willing to state as much? Or are you going to continue trying to mask your own beliefs in your own inherent superiority by false accusations of racism?

20. ‘How many of you are willing to state as much?’

    You called a black woman a half-savage, racist. Your rationalisations are crayon scribblings on the wall of a padded room.

21. “I am almost certainly correct about this and pretty much every social scientist is absolutely wrong.”

    Oh well, I’m glad that’s settled. *facepalm*

    Because poverty reduction programs, social support systems, good education and nutrition to handle poverty at home never ever work…

    The same have been said against minorities, even white ones, for ages and it all amounts to the same thing. Black people are not half savages, Irish are not feckless drunks and over privileged white people from the mid-west don’t have to be idiots. Theodore, you don’t have to behave like this, you can break this cycle just with an act of will and chose not to be this much of a dick! Honestly, I have faith in you.

22. “It’s one thing demanding that an entire nation-state move from fragmented tribal government to modern industrial nation in a few generations, there’s a lot of moving parts there, not including the way in which ‘civilization’ (for want of a better word) was delivered.”

    At least you’re on the right track there. Extending the average time-preferences across an entire population to a point that permits maintenance of advanced civilization appears to take around 1,000 years, give or take 200 years.

    Obviously, this is history and logic, not science. But the repeated and reliable failures of experiments and policies designed around other hypotheses do tend to provide an amount of support for the concept. Perhaps the process can be speeded up, but that will never happen so long as both the process and the time scale are denied.

23. OK, since things are becoming a bit boring with VD, I suggest a drinking/chocolate game. Every time VD says one of his catchphrases, like “SJW always lie!” or “I don’t care, you hear me? I DON’T CARE!!!” we drink or (if it happens during work hours) eat a bit of chocolate. I have a branch of Hotel Chocolat near work and there are many of their truffles I haven’t tried yet.

24. @Rick Moen:

    The “so what?” in this case is less about Vox Day’s particular racist attitudes and more about the contortions which he goes through to deny them – or rather, to own them and then deny that they are racist. It adds up to someone who has no regard for plain-speaking and who cannot be trusted to honestly represent his views. Since he can’t be honest, I think he should necessarily be disregarded.

25. ‘Obviously, this is history and logic, not science.’

    Yeah, races aren’t inherently inferior, it’s just that individual members of a race inherit their races’ backwardness via genetics. How on earth could that possible be mistaken for racism?

26. ‘OK, since things are becoming a bit boring with VD, I suggest a drinking/chocolate game’

    Good God, are you trying to kill us all? In ten minutes flat?

27. As I said, you just need a strong act of will, you can stop being a complete tosser and try to be a person. Come on, I can’t believe that the people of Minnesota are that backwards? 🙁

28. @Anna:

    There is not enough chocolate or booze on the planet for that game to last very long. 🙂

29. ‘As I said, you just need a strong act of will’

    Theodore Beale: Triumph Of The Willy.

30. “You called a black woman a half-savage, racist.”

    You have called a Native American many names here, Nigel. Are you racist?

    “Your rationalisations are crayon scribblings on the wall of a padded room.”

    Vox’s First Law: Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from insanity to the less intelligent.

    “Because poverty reduction programs, social support systems, good education and nutrition to handle poverty at home never ever work…”

    They certainly don’t suffice to establish self-sustaining advanced civilizations where none existed before.

    “Can’t comment on the Bible or Aristotle reference, don’t have the background.”

    “How long will mockers delight themselves in mockery, and fools hate knowledge?” Proverbs 1:22

    “Moreover, before some audiences not even the possession of the exactest knowledge will make it easy for what we say to produce conviction. For argument based on knowledge implies instruction, and there are people whom one cannot instruct.” Aristotle, RHETORIC

31. @Anna Feruglio Dal Dan

    The leading story in the newspapers on May 15:
    “Chocolates are all the rave”

    Chocolate had always been popular. But in the last 10 days the industry found itself unable to support the sudden spike of demand across the United States. All manufacturing outlets are working at their capacity and owners are trying to find new solutions for the crisis. Asked for comments, the managers of the leading European food concerns indicated that they are unable to help because of a similar demands spike all over the world.

    🙂

32. “Yeah, races aren’t inherently inferior, it’s just that individual members of a race inherit their races’ backwardness via genetics.”

    Are you seriously asserting that time-preferences and aggression are not heritable?

33. ‘You have called a Native American many names here, Nigel.’

    I dunno, have I called you racist names, Theodore?

    ‘Vox’s First Law: Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from insanity to the less intelligent.’

    Any sufficiently advanced insanity is indistinguishable from intelligence to the guy who wants people to think he are smart.

34. “i actually posted here for the first time, to give you an honest outsider’s view.”

    You’re less of an outsider than I am. I got involved when the Puppies stunt rendered my Hugo nominations meaningless by filling most of the ballot with their slate. Before that I voted in the Hugos but hadn’t been posting here or any other SF/F fandom blogs.

    Your portrayal of yourself as an outsider who is tut-tutting against one “side” is not convincing. A genuinely uninvolved party wouldn’t be putting so much word salad into a defense of ugly things Day has written.

    My guess is that you’re one of his culture warriors and there’s a place you’ll be running back to with tales of how you taught us “social justice warriors” a lesson.

35. ‘Are you seriously asserting that time-preferences and aggression are not heritable?’

    Well, I’m a morning person, but my parents preferred to stay in bed until half eight or nine, so the jury could be out on that. Have they isolated the gene for western civilisation yet?

36. @Kevin Standlee: Okay, I stand corrected regarding whether you were considering postponing Hugo-related motions until after the Hugo ceremony, and I see that you have posted about that on your LiveJournal today. So my prior comment about that should be disregarded.

37. Well shit, if Theodore Beale thinks that years and years, and data piled upon data, is wrong, then shit, those social scientists must be wrong.

    As for CSAFarmer, your inability to read Teddy’s words is your problem, not mine.

    Rick Moen, why does anyone describe anyone as anything?

38. VD
    “How long will mockers delight themselves in mockery, and fools hate knowledge?” Proverbs 1:22

    “Moreover, before some audiences not even the possession of the exactest knowledge will make it easy for what we say to produce conviction. For argument based on knowledge implies instruction, and there are people whom one cannot instruct.” Aristotle, RHETORIC

    Thank you, confirms I must broaden and deepen my reading list.

    @Anna, I’ll stick with the beer, at great personal sacrifice. Friend of mine owns an ice cream shop, also makes her own chocolates. She’s got a sign that reads “I would give up chocolate, but I’m no quitter”.

39. ” And I believe Mr. Beale has characterised ‘SJWs always lie’ as rhetoric.”

    Mr. Beale divides the world into two parts: “facts” and “rhetoric”. Where the dividing line in depends on where he’s been challenged, and what looks right at any given time, as far as I can tell.

    Given that he seems to believe that people calling him “x-ist” is something subject to factual analysis, in which he splits as many hairs as he can find in order to prove he is not, while giving himself a free “rhetorical” pass for “SJWs always lie” — demonstrably false — his commitment to truth can be reasonably judged to be based on his own expedience. This ties in nicely with the fluidity of his self-defined victory conditions.

    Some people have asked why bother spending time with Mr. Beale. The answer is simple: he’s managed to take some people in. It’s worth a little time in demonstrating his ….at best dubious connection to “honesty” and the like in order to prevent more people from doing so.

    (I was amused by his 3-1-1 assessment earlier, dismissing the “riling up” of his alleged opponents (alleged only in their unity, not in their existence) as not a major factor. Given that there’s no actual *evidence* here, other than Mr. Beale’s imagination, I would not have gone so far as to register a guess. We shall see if Mr. Beale proves to have great foresight — if not, I’m sure he’ll explain to us what other victory of his undid his prediction.)

    @VD: “I am almost certainly correct about this and pretty much every social scientist is absolutely wrong.”

    A quick clue, Mr. Beale: There are people who have said things like this before, and been right. They were usually the ones looking *forward* and suggesting things not thought before, rather than staring *backward*.

    “Every race is, on average, either superior or inferior to every other race with regards to any given metric.”

    Given that the entire notion of a “race” is dubious at best, any statements made upon it, like this one, are *highly* dubious.

    “I assert that absolutely none of us commenting here today are inherently superior to an unborn black child with Down’s Syndrome, no limbs, a 50 IQ, and aberrant sexual orientations.”

    We shall simply note your “aberrant” in there, as self-contradicting. I am also curious as to your “inherently” — what card are you palming behind that particular word?

    I am pleased to hear you say this — now let’s see if you can live up to it, or whether you will have been demonstrated, in fact, to have lied when you said this. (I am willing, which other people may not be, to say that you aren’t lying *now* when you said things taht contradict this in the past.)

    I also encourage you to post this on your blog, and see if your supporters are so willing to sign on.

    Oh, and as a final note: I call your attention to the Meiji Restoration.

    @Anna:

    My workplace wishes to object to your game, on the grounds that we’ll run out of office-supplied chocolate well before the biweekly snacks run. 🙂

40. Every time VD says one of his catchphrases, like “SJW always lie!” or “I don’t care, you hear me? I DON’T CARE!!!” we drink or
    Are you trying to kill us?

41. ” I am almost certainly correct about this and pretty much every social scientist is absolutely wrong”

    I see. So a whole branch of science with its trained scientists got it wrong but one armchair scientist got it right. Did you also win a Nobel or 3, get applauded by the crowds and had half the universe named after you?

    Just to make sure you understand – this is the real world; not a novel and/or game you are writing. Or a dream. In this world “just because I say so” is not a valid proof of a theory – you actually need data.

42. The Nobel Prize comes next year, after the Puppies wrest control of the nominations away from those elitist Scandinavian Justice Warriors.

43. VD: “You have called a Native American many names here, Nigel. Are you racist?”

    I’m glad you brought that up. You do know that “Native American” correlates poorly with race? That in many tribes you can become one of the tribe by adoption, with no Indian blood at all? And that membership by descent is a purely political decision made on a tribe-by-tribe basis, like the Pocahontas exception to one-drop Jim Crow in Virginia?

    So, the fact that you can call yourself “Native American” while being 7/8, by your account, something else, simply demonstrates how arbitrary the concept of race is in actual practice.

44. (Asks self, “Why do a bunch of people who would never go discuss Vox Day’s racial theories with him at Vox Popoli want to have that discussion here?”)

45. Once the discussion goes into why VD’s ideas regarding race are wrong on the merits, the topic is no longer “is VD racist?” but “is racism scientifically correct?” Some people may enjoy engaging in this debate on the “no” side, but I really don’t see how this is a good forum for the engagement or how VD is the “yes” advocate worth engaging with.

46. Mike Glyer: As someone who has disagreed with VD on some of his views on race (and strongly disagreed with several of his commentators) on his blog, I’m guessing it’s because facing him on his own turf and being forced to parse logical arguments is simply an unbearable thought.

    Steven Schwartz: He HAS posted it on his blog.

    Re: Social Science issue – My only comment is that there are a lot of actual scientists, and even economists, who are very insulted about being compared to the senseless nitwits who claim to be engaging in “social science.”

    Re: Jemisin quote: Ha! Already someone misquoted it, even after a copy of it was posted here. I would ask this: why is it relevant that the subject of that comment is black? “Savage” has a meaning that has nothing to do with race… it makes one wonder about the views of those who immediately conclude that it’s a racist comment.

    Meh.

47. Did I hear something about chocolate?

48. S1AL: “Steven Schwartz: He HAS posted it on his blog.”

    I shall go and look and see how he decorated it, and how his commentariat responded, then.

    ““Savage” has a meaning that has nothing to do with race… ”

    Indeed; I would normally consider applying it to someone who, upon seeing a community, decides that, even though he is not part of it and does not really care about it, decides that it is his to play with and lay waste to, unless he is given what he wants from it at the moment — if said is not granted, he proposes to remain there, causing pain and suffering to those who did not give him what he wanted, for as long as it pleases him to do so, before moving on to something else.

    “Barbarian”, “Savage”, etc. These are words I would use to describe such a person. I have yet to see anyone explain why other individuals recently described as thus were such, for any reason other than the dislike of the commenter — or because of said person’s “race”.

49. Annie Y @ 11:09 am- Fandom is apparently a term of art. I’m a fan, and a voter at Saquan, but apparently not a member of fandom. I’m the average, ordinary fan boy who discovered I could vote for the Hugos if I paid $40, read the work, and voted. Per some, that does not make me a member of fandom.

    Nigel @ 11:51 pm- My recommendation is not to bite. All Vox Day did is state the basics of some socio-cultural theories floating out there, such as Dual Inheritance Theory (which is one among several). Putting an aborigine in a three piece suit and handing him a Bible and a textbook on engineering does not make him civilized in the Western sense. He may be civilized within the parameters of his society, he may comprehend the textbook, he may enjoy the suit, but it takes time for the culture to become a “civilization” as Westerners would normally understand it. It is not all that controversial, but it is only a theory (among many) which is still being tested and evaluated. It does not make Vox Day a racist.

    Nigel @ 2:30 pm- Whether one is a savage or part savage, is based on behavior, which may or may not be influenced by culture and/or genetics (I personally think it is both). Not skin color. Vox Day did not link the two. It wasn’t too long ago that my Scandinavian, English, Dutch, Scottish, and Irish ancestors would be considered “savages”. And within a few generations, some Germans engaged in extraordinary savage behavior. Again, I suggest you don’t bite.

    MIke Glyer @ 3:21 pm- You are a wise man.

50. @Mike Glyer: Indeed, agreed that that is neither interesting nor desirable to recap that discussion here. I find equally odd some in present company professing it vital to advise people not to discuss anything with Theodore Beale — minutes after conversing with Theodore Beale.

    @yossarian: To review, I said I was far less interested in arguments over whether ‘X is [some unattractive trait Y]’ than in failure to state what practical usage that allegation has and why. Your reply was basically to add ‘furtive and dishonest’ to the list of Y traits, and aver this to mean that X should be disregarded. (Actually, you went beyond that and said he should be ‘necessarily disregarded’, as if this were some essay by Kant.)

    Continuing my point about ‘If so, so what?’, the elided step is where one would show that persons deemed racist, furtive, and dishonest should categorically be disregarded. (We will set aside that all this is merely asserted by an Internet pseudonym, i.e., yourself, and that you do not follow your own advice.) You provided no convincing reason to accept the predicate omitted from your chain of reasoning, and also one is left wondering what drives you to go around advocating that particular others be disregarded at all.

    That aside, I’ve never had any truck with people trying to tell me whom I should be willing to converse with. Every time it gets tried, I reach for my figurative wallet. I tend not to argue with this trope — no percentage in it — but only because it’s easier to just smile and think ‘hell no’.

    Rick Moen
    [email protected]

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