Monday, December 10, 2012

Intellectual Game

Even in intellectual discourse, the rules of Game apply.  Alastair's Adversaria considers the difference between male and female forms of debate and explains why the female form is intellectually crippling and prone to dishonesty and logical absurdities:
This ‘heterotopic discourse’ makes possible far more spirited challenges to opposing positions, hyperbolic and histrionic rhetoric designed to provoke response and test the mettle of one’s own and the opposing position, assertive presentations of one’s beliefs that are less concerned to present a full-orbed picture than to advocate firmly for a particular perspective and to invite and spark discussion from other perspectives.

The truth is not located in the single voice, but emerges from the conversation as a whole. Within this form of heterotopic discourse, one can play devil’s advocate, have one’s tongue in one’s cheek, purposefully overstate one’s case, or attack positions that one agrees with. The point of the discourse is to expose the strengths and weaknesses of various positions through rigorous challenge, not to provide a balanced position in a single monologue. Those familiar with such discourse will be accustomed to hyperbolic and unbalanced expressions. They will appreciate that such expressions are seldom intended as the sole and final word on the matter by those who utter them, but as a forceful presentation of one particular dimension of or perspective upon the truth, always presuming the existence of counterbalancing perspectives that have no less merit and veracity.

In contrast, a sensitivity-driven discourse lacks the playfulness of heterotopic discourse, taking every expression of difference very seriously. Rhetorical assertiveness and impishness, the calculated provocations of ritual verbal combat, linguistic playfulness, and calculated exaggeration are inexplicable to it as it lacks the detachment, levity, and humour within which these things make sense. On the other hand, those accustomed to combative discourse may fail to appreciate when they are hurting those incapable of responding to it.

Lacking a high tolerance for difference and disagreement, sensitivity-driven discourses will typically manifest a herding effect. Dissenting voices can be scapegoated or excluded and opponents will be sharply attacked. Unable to sustain true conversation, stale monologues will take its place. Constantly pressed towards conformity, indoctrination can take the place of open intellectual inquiry. Fracturing into hostile dogmatic cliques takes the place of vigorous and illuminating dialogue between contrasting perspectives. Lacking the capacity for open dialogue, such groups will exert their influence on wider society primarily by means of political agitation.

The fear of conflict and the inability to deal with disagreement lies at the heart of sensitivity-driven discourses. However, ideological conflict is the crucible of the sharpest thought. Ideological conflict forces our arguments to undergo a rigorous and ruthless process through which bad arguments are broken down, good arguments are honed and developed, and the relative strengths and weaknesses of different positions emerge. The best thinking emerges from contexts where interlocutors mercilessly probe and attack our arguments’ weaknesses and our own weaknesses as their defenders. They expose the blindspots in our vision, the cracks in our theories, the inconsistencies in our logic, the inaptness of our framing, the problems in our rhetoric. We are constantly forced to return to the drawing board, to produce better arguments.

Granted immunity from this process, sensitivity-driven and conflict-averse contexts seldom produce strong thought, but rather tend to become echo chambers. Even the good ideas that they produce tend to be blunt and very weak in places. Even with highly intelligent people within them, conflict-averse groups are poor at thinking. Bad arguments go unchecked and good insights go unhoned and underdeveloped. This would not be such a problem were it not for the fact that these groups frequently expect us to fly in a society formed according to their ideas, ideas that never received any rigorous stress testing. 
This is precisely why smart women like Susan Walsh are correct to be reluctant to permit their sensitive female readers, who have been steeped in an educational culture of sensitivity-driven discourse, the "safe haven" of criticism-free conversation they desire.  It is also why those who habitually engage in sensitivity-driven discourse, of which John Scalzi's blog is a prime example, are uniformly so inept whenever it comes to arguing.

The Rabbit People have three weapons and three weapons only.  The first is to demand submission to their terms by virtue of the sensitivity imperative.  If their interlocutor is unwilling to do that, they quickly move to the name-calling and the inevitable psychological analyses, again in the hopes of the interlocutor's submission.  (This, by the way, is where most people crumble and permit themselves to be sidetracked into defending themselves against the charges that they are a raciss, sexiss, homophobiss rapiss.)  Their final weapon is exclusion, which can be seen in the way feminized atheists like Richard Dawkins and PZ Myers, (unlike Sam Harris and the late Christopher Hitchens), shun debate with potentially competent opponents, and in the way gamma bloggers like Scalzi habitually attempt to attack people and arguments without so much as identifying them or even providing links to the arguments they are attacking.

This is why men should never permit those who are inclined towards sensitivity-driven discourse a foothold in their families and organizations.  The Rabbit People instinct is to attempt to surround themselves with other rabbits as fast as possible and drive out the scary heterotopics.  This is why you'll often see rabbits at HUS begging for crackdowns on other commenters, while the rabbits at Whatever harbor genuine affection for the aptly-named Mallet of Loving Correction.  Although they claim to value dialogue and seek discourse, nothing could be further from the truth.  They actually want to dictate their mindless consensus and have it accepted uncritically by everyone; they fear intellectual competition.

And it is why I provide sensitivity-driven discourse no respect whatsoever. I don't care if you were raped every day of the year and twice on Mondays by the family cat, after which your father killed you with a knife and danced on your grave. Your personal victimization, assuming it genuinely existed in the first place, grants you neither moral authority nor intellectual credibility, much less any form of veto on what others are permitted to think, say, or feel.  Alpha Game and Vox Popoli will always be strongholds of heterotopic discourse; think of them collectively as the Wild Hunt for Rabbit People.

77 comments:

Anonymous said...

HUS may not be fully sensitivity driven discourse, but it is far too censored to be considered a place for good heterotopic discourse.

VD said...

That's because she is walking a tightrope by attempting to gently guide sensitivity-indoctrinated rabbits into heterotopical discourse. It's not at all easy and she does a remarkably good job considering some reasonably consider it to be impossible.

Vicomte said...

Is there any evidence of HUS or SW actually informing or changing a female's opinion or idea of any of the topics at hand?

I remember clearly one post where a girl was advised (as is SOP) to select and attempt to be attracted to (whatever term we're currently using for) not bad-boys.

She acquiesced that while she had allllllllwaaaaayyyysss luved the badboyz, she would now make some sort of attempt to like a decent guy.

Her 'resolve' was much applauded, and everyone wrote it off as another win for the forces of good.

Somehow, I doubt she wasn't getting dicked by the local 'cad' that weekend. I get the impression that this show plays at HUS often and is quite popular.

This 'sensitivity-driven' discourse is rather unperceptive, despite being about 'feeling'.

Koanic said...

This was a very triggering post for me. Epic.

stg58 said...

Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war!

My parents gave me the Havok for Christmas one year. It was awesome! (G.I. Joe vehicle).

taterearl said...

"And it is why I provide sensitivity-driven discourse no respect whatsoever. I don't care if you were raped every day of the year and twice on Mondays by the family cat, after which your father killed you with a knife and danced on your grave."

Other than the fact my father also had sex with my girlfriend on my grave that's basically my life story. Therefore I have great pride that I am best at being a victim.

Unknown said...



"The office of the butcher is held in high esteem in Harmony" - Charles Fourier

Desiderius said...

"Therefore I have great pride that I am best at being a victim."

If you were a real victim, your pride would have been inexorably crushed.

Like mine.

I deserve a cookie.

From you.

Gimme or you're violating my rights.

Because you're evil and selfish.

There oughta be a law.

Daniel said...

Certainly there's an exception to your final paragraph if the victim was word-raped in the assbag by Scalzi himself, right?

Here's Scalzi's sensitive retort (via twitter):

"The irony of a dude griping that my blog caters to sycophants, on a blog which caters to sycophants, never loses its clueless deliciousness."

Yes, I'm quite certain that Scalzi ingested the post with a satisfied squee, not nervous doubt and impotent rage.

Matthew King (King A) said...

I saw Alastair's post recently at Steve Sailer's blog. It is as good an articulation as I have ever seen between the masculine and feminine forms of argument, if poorly written and entirely too long-winded. Sailer summarizes it better.

http://isteve.blogspot.com/2012/12/intellectual-discourse-taking.html

(You should give proper attribution to your sources. It is unlikely you happened upon "Adversaria" without Sailer's guidance.)

More important: "Alpha Game and Vox Popoli will always be strongholds of heterotopic discourse." Please. Don't pat yourself on the back. This forum bans critics/dissenters less than Walsh and Scalzi but far more than Roissy and Rollo. The moderator/author conceals his bitchitude by claiming such criticism to be "off topic" and "warning" them to desist. Hence the homogeneity of the comments, which are distinguished by their flattery of the decidedly mediocre (if big-talking) host.

"Lacking a high tolerance for difference and disagreement, sensitivity-driven discourses will typically manifest a herding effect." Indeed. "Dissenting voices can be scapegoated or excluded and opponents will be sharply attacked." Vox has created an entire lexicon for purposes of dismissing dissent, names which cue his fans to pile on once the Mensa Genius has so characterized them with "Gamma" and "Zeta" and other insider-pavlovian triggers. "Unable to sustain true conversation, stale monologues will take its place." Which explains why this gang-blog-turned-soliloquy is so boring and inert despite the lively topics.

Before you make claims to "heterotopic" discourse, check your own sensitivities. Still, I suppose it's progress that you acknowledge the better ideal and strive for it, albeit with intermittent success.

[Remember, toadies. Wait for the sign from on high that this criticism is somehow beyond the bounds of propriety. Then pile on. Or proceed under the assumption that preemptive imitation and taking the initiative will impress an insecure taskmaster.]

Matt

Josh said...

Wait for the sign from on high that this criticism is somehow beyond the bounds of propriety.

It's not "beyond the bounds of propriety" (your vocabulary in that comment mimics that of a woman about to succumb to the vapors), it's just stupid.

VD said...

(You should give proper attribution to your sources. It is unlikely you happened upon "Adversaria" without Sailer's guidance.)

I did pick it up from Steve's, but I stopped attributing sources a long time ago since practically no one else in the blogosphere was doing it. I have permanent links to the blogs that I find useful, Steve's among them.

Vox has created an entire lexicon for purposes of dismissing dissent, names which cue his fans to pile on once the Mensa Genius has so characterized them with "Gamma" and "Zeta" and other insider-pavlovian triggers.

This is absurd and is indicative of your own rabbity tendencies. You're not only attempting to assign motivation incorrectly, you've gotten it entirely backwards. I created the concept of gamma to label behavior such as yours.

The fact that you find the term dismissive only underlines the undesirable nature of your behavior, gamma boy. Your passive-aggressive bitchiness, indicative of your low rank in the socio-sexual hierarchy, exists no matter what I, or anyone else, calls it.

I don't define your behavior, I merely observe and describe it. The fact that you can't act like a complete prick and monopolize other people's discussions here doesn't indicate that intellectual discourse is limited here in any way.

We've discussed your ideas before. No one agreed with them. You convinced no one. Not because they were blindly following my lead, but because you can't present your ideas in a convincing manner.

Josh said...

What is it with ankle biters constant obsessing over the Mensa thing?

Anonymous said...

It took me a long time, as a former HS debater , UC undergrad, and all around opinionated person, to realize what was happening in my unpleasant interactions with certain people. I'd never quite understand why they were personalizing debate or making things very upsetting for everyone involved. Intuitively I realized a few years ago certain people are both boring to talk to and it's entirely unproductive. This author does a good job of explicating the sensitivity imperative and why it's so corrosive to real thinking.

Stilicho said...

What is it with ankle biters constant obsessing over the Mensa thing?

I suspect that is part of the intended effect...each such protest is evidence of a round on target.

VD said...

What is it with ankle biters constant obsessing over the Mensa thing?

Because it defangs their ability to call me stupid and thus destroys 75 percent of their debate tactics.

Hence all the accusations of craziness. "He stupid" and "He crazy" are about all they have in the arsenal.

stg58 said...

You forgot "he raciss" which as we all know only stupid people are.

Josh said...

Hence all the accusations of craziness. "He stupid" and "He crazy" are about all they have in the arsenal.

No Right Thinking Person would think the way you do. Thus, there must be another expansion...

Waylon said...

I've always been crazy, it's kept me from going insane

Michael Maier said...

I'm still puzzled how anyone can read this place and VP and still think it's an echo chamber.

I guess King Ass is reading into it what he wants to.

Duke of Earl said...

Found this Chesterton quote that shows he was ahead of his time. “A woman uses her intelligence to find reasons to support her intuition.”

The man knew women.

LP2021 Bank of LP Work in Progress said...

Kick ass post, very clarifying, helpful to me as I deal with a new label for the problem people in my life. I'll call them rabbit pple and press on ignoring their nonsense.

It is a step up and more illuminating than calling them henhousing trouble makers.

LP2021 Bank of LP Work in Progress said...

Susan tries her best but I never participate @HUS b/c (some of the) commenters are ultra sensitive, too emo for me.

LP2021 Bank of LP Work in Progress said...

Susan tries her best but I never participate @HUS b/c (some of the) commenters are ultra sensitive, too emo for me.

Desiderius said...

This blog is middle-of-the-road echo chamber wise.

Whenever there is a strong alpha that sets the tone, other men (and women) will more or less fall in line, not without a loss of some heterotopic robustness. Vox's voice being his own, not in fact God's, it's not perfect, but it usually satisfices.

Similar dynamic at CH.

It's a different dynamic than the sensitivity-dominated, but its not full-on ideal for truthseeking. One reason we have a system of adversarial inquiry in our courts.

Closest I've seen to pure heterotopic would be Volokh Conspiracy, but due to professional vulnerabilities they can be bullied by the sensitivity police to some extent.

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Loki of Asgard said...

...[T]hink of them collectively as the Wild Hunt for Rabbit People.

You will soon receive a horned helmet by post, assuming my secretary can remain sober long enough to give the proper direction this time.

Now, what it might do if you put it on, I make no guarantees, but I assure you there will be excitement.

Toby Temple said...

Vox has created an entire lexicon for purposes of dismissing dissent, names which cue his fans to pile on once the Mensa Genius has so characterized them with "Gamma" and "Zeta" and other insider-pavlovian triggers.

Wow! Talk about projection...

Matthew King (King A) said...

"What is it with ankle biters constant obsessing over the Mensa thing?"

No man of merit would, unsolicited, advertise his association with a group that declares virtue along a single, dubious metric rather than encourages the demonstration of virtue in more widely acknowledged ways. Show don't tell.

"This is absurd and is indicative of your own rabbity tendencies. You're not only attempting to assign motivation incorrectly, you've gotten it entirely backwards. I created the concept of gamma to label behavior such as yours."

Am I supposed to know what "rabbity" means?

Your origins explanation is fair enough. I understand the reason why you originally wanted to promulgate a D&D alignment schema. But in its failure to achieve acceptance beyond this small sphere of influence, it has since devolved into shorthand among groupies and insults no one external to the cult-initiation can understand. Like a Spongebob fan calling me a crustacean. Ooo, burned? I'm supposed to be insulted, but in order to take offense, I'd first have to crawl inside your cramped brain to get how it's supposed to be insulting.

"We've discussed your ideas before. No one agreed with them. You convinced no one. Not because they were blindly following my lead, but because you can't present your ideas in a convincing manner."

If that's what you need to tell yourself, fine by me. I don't pretend that I can "present [my] ideas" in comment-reaction to a blog post. I just point out the howlers. And they're not "blindly following [your] lead" so much as conforming to a "homotopic" ethos encouraged by your shabby treatment of dissenters.

My point was, a truly "heterotopic" forum would not be so cultish about your sensitivity-driven ethos. The conflict that derives from disagreeing with the host is not seen as potentially salutary but rather distasteful and disruptive. Your audience wouldn't react so predictably and uniformly to dissent, even bad dissent (which I will allow the possibility of my criticism to be). It would rather encourage sharp criticism in a sporting way -- the counterpoints against which the confident man of assertion might riff. As Alisdair puts it succinctly:

"To those accustomed to the first mode of discourse, the scathing satire and sharp criticism of the second appears to be a vicious and personal attack, driven by a hateful animus ["gamma boy"], when those who adopt such modes of discourse are typically neither personally hurt nor aiming to cause such hurt. Rather, as this second form of discourse demands personal detachment from issues under discussion, ridicule does not aim to cause hurt, but to up the ante of the debate, exposing the weakness of the response to challenge, pushing opponents to come back with more substantial arguments or betray their lack of convincing support for their position."

Yours is simply not a high level of debate that can admit those who "up the ante." It is one dismissive of dissent per se, because you assume disagreement can only derive from "passive-aggressive bitchiness," or some other equally preposterous ad hominem (My direct assault on your self-flattery may be wrong-headed, but can you really call it "passive"?).

Matthew King (King A) said...

"Supporters of this ‘sensitive’ mode of discourse will typically try, not to answer opponents with better arguments, but to silence them completely as ‘[absurd]’, ‘[rabbity (?)]’, ‘[gamma (?)]’, ‘[passive-aggressive]’, ‘[(un)convincing]', etc.

"A completely contrasting mode of education, one more typical of traditional – and male-oriented – educational systems, values internalized confidence, originality, agonism, independence of thought, creativity, assertiveness, the mastery of one’s feelings, a thick skin and high tolerance for your own and others’ discomfort, disputational ability, competitiveness, nerve, initiative, imagination, and force of will, values that come to the fore in confrontational oral debate. Such an education will produce a mode of discourse that is naturally highly oppositional and challenging, while generally denying participants the right to take things personally."


Again, I will commend you for at least understanding the superiority of this approach. But you should examine yourself more honestly before making a claim to exemplifying its ethos. You clearly do not. If you did, dissenters would regularly comment, rather than commenters providing a series of amplifying agreements.

Which is fine by me. You don't have to encourage criticism if you can't handle it/don't benefit from it. But don't make the risible claim that you are "heterotopic."

Produce a single commenter who doesn't automatically disagree with this critique, and I'll reconsider your homotopic discourse. Hint: the self-selected commenters don't agree overwhelmingly with your shtick because it's overwhelmingly right. If you aren't producing intelligent backlash, you aren't producing an argument of any substance. When you whine about how people like me "can't present [my] ideas in a convincing manner," that is a commentary on you: a self admission that your ideas are not provocative enough to inspire worthy opposition.

But that is the point, isn't it? People of no humility and utterly convinced of their automatic rectitude regard dissent as dangerous to their pristine (and preposterous) image rather than an opportunity to improve their position by challenge and testing. They assume their position, by virtue of its origination in someone with their IQ, cannot be improved. Which is the assumption of a clown.

Matt

Josh said...

You're spending an awful lot of time proving that you're not offended.

Toby Temple said...

I find it really amusing that a critic who is perfectly allowed to criticize the host of this blog is claiming that the host does not tolerate critics.

VryeDenker said...

What is it with ankle biters constant obsessing over the Mensa thing?

Mental-penis envy.

facepalm said...



More important: "Alpha Game and Vox Popoli will always be strongholds of heterotopic discourse." Please. Don't pat yourself on the back. This forum bans critics/dissenters less than Walsh and Scalzi but far more than Roissy and Rollo. The moderator/author conceals his bitchitude by claiming such criticism to be "off topic" and "warning" them to desist. Hence the homogeneity of the comments, which are distinguished by their flattery of the decidedly mediocre (if big-talking) host.

"Lacking a high tolerance for difference and disagreement, sensitivity-driven discourses will typically manifest a herding effect." Indeed. "Dissenting voices can be scapegoated or excluded and opponents will be sharply attacked." Vox has created an entire lexicon for purposes of dismissing dissent, names which cue his fans to pile on once the Mensa Genius has so characterized them with "Gamma" and "Zeta" and other insider-pavlovian triggers. "Unable to sustain true conversation, stale monologues will take its place." Which explains why this gang-blog-turned-soliloquy is so boring and inert despite the lively topics.


Haha! You can certainly strike poses bordering on the ridiculous when you put on your uber-alpha Christian strongman costume, but at least someone here isn't nuzzling in Vox's choad.

This blog is middle-of-the-road echo chamber wise.

Whenever there is a strong alpha that sets the tone, other men (and women) will more or less fall in line, not without a loss of some heterotopic robustness.


Ironic, considering those men are supposed to be learning to alpha up.

kh123 said...

Interesting meltdown several comments up.

facepalm said...

The fact that you can't act like a complete prick and monopolize other people's discussions here doesn't indicate that intellectual discourse is limited here in any way.

The discussion would be pretty apt considering the topic of this post, if you dared to engage it. Instead you're attempting to shut him up with name calling.

Really, what this brings to mind is your absurd series of debates with that random internet atheist that devolved from a debate about the existence of God (at least purportedly) to a debate about the possibility of the existence of aliens, ghosts and everything in between. All while your faithful worshippers at VP tossed accolades at you and incessantly proclaimed your victory until they were blue in the face. Heterotropic indeed.

VD said...

My point was, a truly "heterotopic" forum would not be so cultish about your sensitivity-driven ethos. The conflict that derives from disagreeing with the host is not seen as potentially salutary but rather distasteful and disruptive.

You've completely missed the point. The reason you are almost universally viewed as distasteful and disruptive is because you have nothing substantive to say. You quite literally argue like a woman, attacking the person rather than the idea, assigning imaginary motivations and ineptly psychoanalyzing those you neither know nor understand.

If you disagreed with the ideas and presented your own, that would be fine. But most of what you do is repeatedly spout personal attacks in a futile attempt to discredit me.

I will commend you for at least understanding the superiority of this approach. But you should examine yourself more honestly before making a claim to exemplifying its ethos. You clearly do not. If you did, dissenters would regularly comment, rather than commenters providing a series of amplifying agreements.

Given that VP is indubitably heterotopic and that the rules here are even laxer than they are there, your logic is clearly false. The readership is smaller and the focus is more tight, therefore logic suggests that there simply aren't that many dissenters or that the ideas I am communicating are simply not considered particularly controversial among those reading here.

The absence of dissent doesn't necessarily indicate the silencing of dissent, especially when there is substantial evidence, which includes your own comments, that dissent is tolerated.

Produce a single commenter who doesn't automatically disagree with this critique, and I'll reconsider your homotopic discourse.

I direct your attention to Facepalm's comment of 11:22 PM. And I suggest that if you focused on actually addressing the concepts communicated here on the relevant posts, rather than using each opportunity to demonstrate your ignorance and psychoanalytical ineptitude, you might find some of that engagement you appear to desire.

But so long as your arguments are primarily focused on me and my credibility, those who find me credible, for whatever reason, will simply continue to either ignore you or laugh at you. Is that really so difficult to understand?

VD said...

The discussion would be pretty apt considering the topic of this post, if you dared to engage it. Instead you're attempting to shut him up with name calling.

Engage what? The assertion that no man of merit would mention a group to which he belongs? The ludicrous claim that I created an entire lexicon for purposes of dismissing dissent?

That's not dissent and there is nothing to discuss. Matt jumps in, does the equivalent of declaring that the Moon is made of cheddar, and then is surprised when neither I nor anyone else take him seriously.

Desiderius said...

Facepalm,

There is nothing non-alpha about falling in line behind a greater alpha. That is the natural order of things.

Transcending that order is what makes Christianity super-natural.

For it to be transcended, it must first be achieved, but our culture has instead devolved into mere disorder, with some few exceptions.


Athor Pel said...




Projection thy name is Matt.

I want you to know that you are destroying your credibility. Any good you may do commenting on other blogs is in the process of being undermined because of the little show you are putting on here. Do you think this kind of display won't be shared around?

You seem to care about the esteem in which you are held by the folks you interact with online, at least those in which you yourself respect. You're losing it every time you write a comment like the ones you've slapped up here.

If the subject disagrees with your sensibilities so deeply then why are you even here? Can you even answer that without saying it's all about the character assassination of the blog owner?


Disagree all you want but make a point. Disagree and tell us why you disagree. Debate like a fully adult human male. Stop with the circumlocutive name calling and make an actual argument. If you can.





Lucas said...

OT,

Men prefer dumb women?


Actually, we prefer less complicated women.

Anonymous said...

"There is nothing non-alpha about falling in line behind a greater alpha. That is the natural order of things."

Yup. I'm not a leader, don't wanna be. If you can earn my respect I am, however, a kick-ASS follower. And that's not a joke. I pull a nice little salary purely on my ability to help leaders focus on leading, rather than getting bogged in minutia or administrivia.

Anybody who disdains this process has forfeited the benefits of being part of a social species. Go be a tiger or a praying mantis if you want, but for the rest of us, man is a political animal.

Loki of Asgard said...

Yup. I'm not a leader, don't wanna be. If you can earn my respect I am, however, a kick-ASS follower. And that's not a joke. I pull a nice little salary purely on my ability to help leaders focus on leading, rather than getting bogged in minutia or administrivia.

Hmm.

Would you be interested in a position in a small but rising political-action group? I pay quite well, and I even offer insurance.

Loki of Asgard said...

OT, Men prefer dumb women?

Describing "reading certain women for the whores they choose to be" as "exploitation" is a master stroke of propaganda.

Take a woman at her word, and you will suffer for it.

SarahsDaughter said...

"Anybody who disdains this process has forfeited the benefits of being part of a social species" - happycrow

Much like women who disdain the process of becoming kick ass wives who have happy homes and marriages due to their willingness to help their husbands focus on his mission.

Martel said...

Loki: What type of political action?

Desiderius said...

Athor Pel,

What you say is true, but then again what Matt is doing is also part of the natural process of establishing hierarchies among males, and preferable to the utter stagnation of sensitivity-dominated groupthink.

It is both an attempt to establish his own dominance and a fitness test of VD's. We'll see who prevails.

Signe said...

Martel, we don't have a formal name for it yet. Wade wanted to call it "The Committee for Making Bitches Kneel, Dragon Riding, and Chimichangas", but I managed to convince him it wouldn't fit on a business card.

His Lordship doesn't care what it's called, as long as we do what we're supposed to do, which is to institute his reign somewhere on the planet.

facepalm said...

Engage what? The assertion that no man of merit would mention a group to which he belongs? The ludicrous claim that I created an entire lexicon for purposes of dismissing dissent?

How about this:

Again, I will commend you for at least understanding the superiority of this approach. But you should examine yourself more honestly before making a claim to exemplifying its ethos. You clearly do not. If you did, dissenters would regularly comment, rather than commenters providing a series of amplifying agreements.

Ironically, you had to point to me as a dissenter. And I agree with Matt that your blogs are echo chambers, comprised of sycophants who are all too eager to shout down actual dissenters on your behalf. And when they don't do it adequately you come out of your cave and bare your teeth to scare them away. Even on a post like this, which should have plenty of people pointing out how insulated, self satisfied and resistant to other points of view you are, many times, and your followers are, even more, you have two. One who rarely bothers to comment here, although he has interesting and comprehensive views, and me. And I only comment because I like to throw a stick in the spokes as everyone's piling on to the bandwagon.

Master Doh-San said...

"Kill da wabbit.... kill da waaaaabit...!"

(With apologies to Elmer Fudd. )


Sorry. Just couldn't resist.

VD said...

Ironically, you had to point to me as a dissenter. And I agree with Matt that your blogs are echo chambers, comprised of sycophants who are all too eager to shout down actual dissenters on your behalf.

It is ironic. And yet, it sufficed to prove him wrong. The fact that you both happen to be wrong about your mutually shared echo chamber notion is irrelevant.

Duke of Earl said...

Could it be that people who come to Vox Day's blogs do so in the main because they share some views with him? Not all of course, there have been some interesting discussions on life, the universe, and everything between people holding different viewpoints.

It may well be that the reason certain critics get jumped on is because their approach is regarded as beyond the pale, even among a fairly rambunctious lot. Rather than, for example, disagreeing with Vox on economic matters by saying "Vox, I disagree with x y z, because I understand that when a b or c happens it causes d e f," in which case Vox can either rethink his position, or demonstrate that he had already considered that scenario and had dismissed it because of other factors he'd considered, we get the rather patronizing efforts seen by a commentator on VP who tried to portray Vox as ignorant of economics.

Of course there are people who come in with an attitude, and eventually settle down. For example Tad seems to be acting like a decent human being now.

Knew a man once who complained that everyone looked at him like he was as dirty as a pig. One day he looked in the mirror, and realized that they were right.

Daniel said...

When someone calls back with a different sound, it isn't an echo.

Evidence of wild (insanely wild) disagreement abounds:

Atheism
Deflation
Calvinism
Publishing
Omniscience
Evolution
Man's Measurable Effect on Global Warming
The Moon Landings (!)
Feminism

and on and on. Dissent is practically a rule. You are too short for the ride if you want to complain that people are yelling at you AND there isn't enough dissent around here.

So which is it, you non-existent dissenters? Is the food terrible or are the portions too small?

HanSolo said...

@Desiderius

Good to see you on here. How are things going for you? Miss you on HUS but I realize that people move on or are busy. I still appreciate your response to me that one time where you posted that song of Amazing Grace. Cheers.

Desiderius said...

Han,

Appreciate the kind words. My exit from HUS had nothing to do with being too busy - ironically I do give Susan some credit for helping restore my life to its prior fullness, but it was full before I left - or moving on.

Did have to do with the topic of this thread.

Do miss the gang there and hope all are well.

Desiderius said...

Duke of Earl,

"the rather patronizing efforts"

If all one has experienced is sensitivity-dominated discourse, that's is literally all one knows. They've been intellectually bullied, and so seek to bully.

Eyes used only to the dark will squint in the light.

HanSolo said...

@Desiderius,

I understand why you stopped posting there and felt like some of the suppositions or accusations made against you were unfair. Do you mostly post here or anywhere else? Let me know if you ever start a blog.

Matthew King (King A) said...

Toby Temple wrote: "I find it really amusing that a critic who is perfectly allowed to criticize the host of this blog is claiming that the host does not tolerate critics."

I find it amusing that you are amused by your own misinterpretations. I did not use the word "tolerate." I agreed with Alistair's characterization (emph. added), "Lacking a high tolerance for difference and disagreement" and applied it to this discourse. The forum obviously has tolerance, but it is not a "high tolerance," which means perhaps it is not as heterotopic as claimed.

My criticism challenged the author to demonstrate its heterotopic nature, not to merely assert it several more times. If you have a discerning eye, you will notice the evasiveness. Maybe my argument is indeed "universally viewed as distasteful and disruptive" and has "nothing substantive to say" and is off-the-wall stupid and nobody likes me and maybe you should just go. But if that were true, it should have been easy to show instances of dissent that were respected, tolerated, and responded to with more than silly shorthand and dismissal.

Even the one example cited, from facepalm, was subject to curt prima facie dismissal. "there is nothing to discuss ... neither I nor anyone else take him seriously ..." Any man who uses what "anyone else" thinks as an argument is a man not engaged in the argument but rather its superficial side effects.

Which was my point from the beginning about this stale forum.

Matt

Matthew King (King A) said...

Athor Pel wrote: "I want you to know that you are destroying your credibility. Any good you may do commenting on other blogs is in the process of being undermined because of the little show you are putting on here. Do you think this kind of display won't be shared around?"

This is called concern trolling. For the record, I couldn't care less what you think of my credibility -- particularly since you are crude enough to imagine it should suffer for challenging a blog host's self-puffery. Please do share far and wide, and stop imagining your hand-wringing constitutes a threat to me.

Do you not understand that, in the very moment you wrote your comment, you were encouraging a "sensitivity-driven" discourse? Are we here to uncover the truth, sensitivities be damned, or are we here to play patty cake and take everybody's temperature on a topic with a rectal thermometer?

I operate under the (respectful) assumption that you regard a critic's words with the same impersonal disinterest as I do. It doesn't matter how inelegantly or divisively a thesis is presented or who is presenting it (look up ethos in Aristotle's Rhetoric). All that matters is whether it is true. "[T]his second form of discourse demands personal detachment from issues under discussion, ridicule does not aim to cause hurt, but to up the ante of the debate, exposing the weakness of the response to challenge, pushing opponents to come back with more substantial arguments or betray their lack of convincing support for their position."

I see a "lack of convincing support for their position," and I said as much as sharply as possible to provoke response. That I only received in return concern-trolling, barbs that do not sting, and a double-down on assertion does little to convince me otherwise. But you are not here to convince critics like me; you are here rather to dispatch them. Lively debates go on for hundreds of comments, like on other, less fussy blogs. On this one we get a bland exposition followed by a couple dozen "hear, hears" on a good day.

"You seem to care about the esteem in which you are held by the folks you interact with online, at least those in which you yourself respect. You're losing it every time you write a comment like the ones you've slapped up here."

Let this paragraph suffice to disabuse you of that idea forever. I care not a whit for the esteem of combox warriors and self-regarding bloggers. I care about agonizing my way toward the truth. I have an ego, but it has nothing to do with the pursuit of truth. Unlike you hall-monitors of this sensitivity-driven discourse, I simply don't notice the ego-bruising, even when it's spitefully directed at me. As if it's supposed to matter what PussySlayer69 or some pipsqueak who self-parodically styles himself the "Voice of God" thinks of me.

Matt

Unending Improvement said...

Paragraphs and paragraphs of "I don't care"

You do care, or else you would quit your BPD-esque "Hey look at me!"

You sound worse than a Jezebel blogger

Matthew King (King A) said...

Duke of Earl wrote: "Could it be that people who come to Vox Day's blogs do so in the main because they share some views with him?"

This is a fair point, indeed the only one about the original topic worth responding to so far. Yes, audiences are self-selecting and therefore the commentary tends to be agreeable. But if that is the best dynamic you can accomplish, don't go claiming the discourse here to be heterotopic and manly ... because ... because you say it is.

Again, the goal is to be lauded -- merely striving for the ideal puts this website leagues ahead of Susan Walsh's quilt circle and Scalzi's lactating manboob splatter he calls an exchange.

But without a hard look at the dynamic -- an examination which is prevented chiefly by the host's insecurities -- you will only achieve this goal accidentally, when critics like me spy an interesting headline on Delusion Damage's aggregator, stop in, see a familiar post from Sailer, and then witness a completely wrongheaded interpretation of it with regard to this site's frustrating discourse.

Because this should be a good site. It was conceived with an excellent mission but is crippled by the domineering execution. Whatever the worth of the last guy who posts here anymore, this discussion has ceased to be open-source because his cartoonish egomania drove other writers and dissenters away. A man in pursuit of excellent ideas is not afraid of gathering even stupid ones, trusting that his forum will winnow away the chaff. A man who is convinced he is already in possession of excellent ideas, on the other hand, isolates himself and dumbs himself down.

I have enough experience with this site to know how my dissent will be treated. I have had enough people call my ideas stupid (including myself) to know the difference between mere assertion and convincing demonstration. I am Diogenes with a lamp, searching for good opposition. Call me an idiot a hundred more times, you're missing the point. Show me convincingly I am an idiot, and I will respect you forever. But an audience of amplifiers and yes-men is, by definition, baffled by the very idea.

Next time your Hero With The 199 IQ posts something, play devil's advocate just for an exercise. Poke him, prod him, make him push back. You might be invigorated by the exchange! Or, like me, you might be exasperated by the simple reassertions and useless, predictable, and snooze-inducing anathema. And then you'll understand where I'm coming from.

Matt

Matthew King (King A) said...

"Paragraphs and paragraphs of 'I don't care.' You do care, or else..."

Holy shit. Do you stooges have this one on a macro?

Is the puppeteer's hand so far up your ass that you can't pause to discern the difference between expression to discover and promote the truth and expression to curry favor with certain purse-mouthed audiences? Are you only familiar with the latter because that is what motivates you?

Get out of my sight, you prickly little lifeless urchin.

Jestin Ernest said...

" This forum bans critics/dissenters less than Walsh and Scalzi but far more than Roissy and Rollo. "


i've told Vox he was wrong. more than once.

here and on VP.

gotten into arguments with, oh, probably well over a dozen members of the Ilk at various times. JQP, Nate and Taylor would all be notable instances. Taylor seems not to like me much at all. i can't think why Her Royal Highness would have an issue with me ... ;-]


and i've NEVER ( to my knowledge ) been banned. don't think i've even been warned, beyond requests that i not feed trolls.

what was your point again? perhaps Vox just keeps me around because i so reliably skewer clowns such as yourself?


his association with a group that declares virtue along a single, dubious metric rather than encourages the demonstration of virtue in more widely acknowledged ways.

sheesh. you FEEL like 'intelligence' is congruent with 'virtue'? that's a pretty damn big category error there, boy.

WISDOM is a virtue. intelligence is an attribute.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/virtue?s=t

Slick Willy is intelligent. he's also one of the most *overtly* sleazy and unprincipled men ever to be POTUS. iow, completely with OUT virtue.

consider this a learning experience. anyways, that's enough to determine that your IQ level isn't sufficient to discourse on either of these blogs.

haven't any more time to waste on you, i go now to rock out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIv10I2hMmY

Toby Temple said...

I find it amusing that you are amused by your own misinterpretations. I did not use the word "tolerate." I agreed with Alistair's characterization (emph. added), "Lacking a high tolerance for difference and disagreement" and applied it to this discourse. The forum obviously has tolerance, but it is not a "high tolerance," which means perhaps it is not as heterotopic as claimed.

Thanks for clarifying your position. But still you are wrong.

Irrelevant posts are not tolerated. Not all dissenting posts merit respect. But dissenting posts of substance would even merit a blog post from Vox himself.

Sadly, you made a judgment call base on an assumption which is proven by this statement of yours:

You clearly do not. If you did, dissenters would regularly comment, rather than commenters providing a series of amplifying agreements.

You assume that all dissenters are worth the blogger's damn time or even his immediate respect. And that is where you err.

Because this should be a good site.

This is a good site. And just as you think the regulars' taste is subpar, the regulars' also do not think highly of your own taste.

And if you want a metric on why this is a good site, just check the site meter. When I started reading this blog the number was still, if I remember correctly, at 3 digits.

Next time your Hero With The 199 IQ posts something, play devil's advocate just for an exercise. Poke him, prod him, make him push back.

This is hilarious coming from a guy who is not a regular of Vox Popoli. Again, you err too much because you assume too much

Here's a hint: just because regulars here agree on Vox about Game does not mean they agree on him about anything(for example Christian Theology).

Go to Vox Popoli, oh ignorant king.

Toby Temple said...

correction:

Here's a hint: just because regulars here agree on Vox about Game does not mean they agree on him about everything else(for example Christian Theology).

Josh said...

I have a feeling that if the next post on here was simply "2+2=4", Matt would take the absence of comments giving another answer as a sign of sycophants.

facepalm said...

I have a feeling that if the next post on here was simply "2+2=4", Matt would take the absence of comments giving another answer as a sign of sycophants.

I was just about to sarcastically elaborate that the reason criticism is not accepted here is due to the inherent and irrefutable correctness of Vox's contentions. Criticism is obsolete, irrelevant! Not only did you beat me to it, you seem to be earnest about it to boot. How dismaying.

facepalm said...

At the very least, King is a better writer than anyone else in this exchange. But the important thing is that he's both incisive and profane, which is a risky thing, so give the guy some props.

Anonymous said...

Loki of Asgard:

I'm always open, depending on how the offer compares to what I'm doing, and what you're up to -- fair warning, I consider a job interview to very much be a two-way street. If you're not good with that, I'm not your guy.

scholarsvoices on gmail.

Daniel said...

Why the hell is Matt doing addressing a lifeless urchin...and how, exactly does he know that it is prickly?

There are laws, sir. There are laws.

Jestin Ernest said...

At the very least, King is a better writer than anyone else in this exchange.


*snort*

as i elaborated above, "intelligence" is in no way, shape or form a "virtue". intelligence is a physical attribute and is no more virtuous than red hair ( those soul-less gingers! ), blue eyes or strong arms.

Matthew possesses neither the intelligence or wisdom nor language comprehension or reasoning skills to earn respect on these boards.

given that he's got his hand up your ass, i can only presume that you likewise lack the attributes that one might find useful on a board such as this.

as i commented in the previous thread, attempting to get a group to concede to a falsehood or unprincipled behavior is a common tactic of the effeminate personality.

that Vox actually has conceded the point to Matthew may mean that he let Matt get a sneaky one by him.

or it may mean that Vox knows exactly what Matthew did, intends to allow him his Archimedes fulcrum and has already strategized a way to destroy him in detail even though Vox has ceded ground at the outset of the debate because he doesn't consider it salient.

i'll leave you to judge the results for yourelf.

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Andrew Riegle said...

"Your personal victimization, assuming it genuinely existed in the first place, grants you neither moral authority nor intellectual credibility, much less any form of veto on what others are permitted to think, say, or feel."

Good lord, this is why you will never be taken seriously by the vast majority of people.

I won't deny that some people use their victim status to beat other people over the head with, nor will I deny that exaltation of victimhood seems to be the left's modus operandi. But to refuse to take other people's feelings into consideration just makes you an asshole that decent people will not want anything to do with

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