A portrait in conflict

Wrath of the Lich King is live. This is good. Lord British has announced his departure from NCSoft in terms that suggest he is essentially retiring from game development. This is devastating. I’ve been acquainted with him for years and when we spoke last summer, I was impressed to see how he was one of the few designers in the MMO space who was really trying to break out of the hardware cycle and expand the nature of the fundamental gameplay instead. Tabula Rasa was a failure for a number of reasons that I won’t go into here, but I suspect will prove to be a more influential game in terms of design concepts than much more successful MMOs like Warhammer.

Instead of beginning the long march to level 80 tonight, I think I shall go old school instead and fire up Akalabeth on the Apple II emulator.

Posted by Vox Day.

The permanent Democratic majority

The demographic countdown:

There is no question that Obama owes a debt to the Kennedys – but it may be far greater than he or they realize. Yes, Senator Edward M. Kennedy offered a crucial early endorsement, comparing the Obama of 2008 to the Jack Kennedy of 1960. And certainly Caroline and others in the Kennedy family worked hard on the campaign trail. But the greatest Kennedy legacy to Obama isn’t Ted or Caroline or Bobby Jr., but rather the Immigration Act of 1965, which created the diverse country that is already being called Obama’s America.

That act is rarely mentioned when recounting the high points of 1960s liberalism, but its impact arguably rivals the Voting Rights Act, the creation of Medicare, or other legislative landmarks of the era. It transformed a nation 85 percent white in 1965 into one that’s one-third minority today, and on track for a nonwhite majority by 2042.

Before the act, immigration visas were apportioned based on the demographic breakdown that existed at the time of the 1920 Census – meaning that there were few if any limits on immigrants from Western and Northern Europe, but strict quotas on those from elsewhere.

I understand that many, if not most, Americans believe that people are simply people, all scientific knowledge and even evolutionary biology notwithstanding. But, it’s amazing that so many of them are perfectly willing to gamble not only their country, but their children’s future, on this assumption without even a shred of scientific support except for an obvious intra-species ability to breed.

So, here’s the obvious question. What if this assumption is, in fact, wrong? What if it is determined that there are, in fact, qualitative differences between different human populations? And wouldn’t it have been a good idea to see a non-European culture demonstrate a proven capacity for Western civilization and Western societal norms before permitting the unlimited migration of its members? It’s true that Japan has demonstrated a genuine capacity for Western civilization, but then, Japan is not Somalia, Mexico, or Pakistan and the migration into America is not primarily made up of Japanese.

And if Somalis, Mexicans, and Pakistanis can’t manage Western civilization in their own countries, what is the basis for the belief that they can do so in Western countries? This is a particularly important question given the known consequences of historical migrations in addition to the empirical evidence of modern Londonistan, the Parisian banlieus, and Washington DC.

Democrats are not yet a permanent majority, but they appear to be only two generations away from becoming one prior to splitting into a new bifactional ruling party. In this sense, the Republican squish faction is correct to push for a Republican makeover in the Democrat Lite mode; if current trends prevail, there will be two major parties in the USA, the Democratic Socialists and the Social Democrats. One thing that immigration observers often miss is that two of the three major Mexican parties – the Institutional Revolutionary Party and the Party of the Democratic Revolution – are to the left of the Democratic party, being members of the Socialist International.

Posted by Vox Day.

Eventually, rates will rise

If they had any economic sense at all, the American and European central banks would have been raising rates sooner rather than later:

Russia lifts rates to 12pc to save rouble as crisis deepens

Russia’s central bank has raised interest rates a full percentage point to 12pc to prevent a collapse of the rouble following a day of mayhem on the Moscow markets, prompting concerns that the financial crisis may be spiralling out of control. The surprise move last night came after the authorities had spent $7bn of foreign reserves in a matter of hours trying to defend the currency, at a lower level. The central bank has now spent $84bn of its reserves over the last month…. Expecting trouble, the Kremlin has mobilised the police to crush dissent.

It seems there are two models for the American future, the Russian one and the Japanese one. Neither looks particularly appealing, but they’re both to be preferred to the Weimar Republic’s hyperinflation.

Posted by Vox Day.

Pondering Obama

The OC emails with a thought-provoking question:

The question was posed: what will El Presidente Big Daddy Obama’s proposed Civilian National Security Force be able to do that the existing National Guard cannot already do?

The answer is, being a “civilian” agency, anything the National Guard and other established military forces are forbidden to do within the borders of our country by the 1876 Posse Comitatus Act.

Well, isn’t THAT a happy little thought now! I shall have to ponder my own expectations of the new president-elect.

Posted by Vox Day.