The NFL overtime solution

Keep sudden-death, just give the ball first to the team with fewer penalties. Not penalty yards, penalties.

Posted by Vox Day.

Scientific consensus = false

The fraud and deception of the “scientific consensus” on anthropogenic global warming/climate change continues to pile higher:

The IPCC made a prominent claim in its 2007 report, again citing the WWF as its authority, that climate change could endanger “up to 40 per cent” of the Amazon rainforest – as iconic to warmists as those Himalayan glaciers and polar bears. This WWF report, it turned out, was co-authored by Andy Rowell, an anti-smoking and food safety campaigner who has worked for WWF and Greenpeace, and contributed pieces to Britain’s two most committed environmentalist newspapers. Rowell and his co-author claimed their findings were based on an article in Nature. But the focus of that piece, it emerges, was not global warming at all but the effects of logging.

A Canadian analyst has identified more than 20 passages in the IPCC’s report which cite similarly non-peer-reviewed WWF or Greenpeace reports as their authority, and other researchers have been uncovering a host of similarly dubious claims and attributions all through the report. These range from groundless allegations about the increased frequency of “extreme weather events” such as hurricanes, droughts and heatwaves, to a headline claim that global warming would put billions of people at the mercy of water shortages – when the study cited as its authority indicated exactly the opposite, that rising temperatures could increase the supply of water.

I’ve been a total skeptic from the beginning and even I think this is beginning to get ridiculous. They haven’t gotten ANYTHING right! By the time this round of exposes is done, I half expect to be told that Al Gore and the climate change “scientists” are humanoid aliens from Europa who require a frozen climate to live comfortably.

Posted by Vox Day.

Mailvox: Surmounting Gamma

An anonymous reader has a request:

Your recent posts on the whole alpha/beta scale and specifically your post “Hierarchy test: the answer key” fits right into somethings I have been pondering in my life. In it you write “Gammas constantly sabotage their efforts to reach their goals because they want them so badly.” and “Gammas always engage in preemptive rejection.”

I have an IQ that is well above average and a somewhat rounded skillset/abilities but despite that I don’t find success and have determined that I am somehow self-sabotaging. Its an unconscious “gift” that I would really like to be rid of and something I have been pondering of late. And while I hadn’t thought of it previously I think that “preemptive rejection” ties right into it.

Now I realize that your post was more to do with Game but that isn’t really what I am looking at. Sure it would be nice to do better with women, but I have a child to take care of and so my focus is more on life in general and I was wondering what advice you might have for those of us who find far too much of your description of Gamma in our lives.

As I have been repeatedly attempting to tell the Deltas, Gammas, and Omegas who wish to identify themselves as anything but what they are, the first step is to recognize clearly where you are perceived on the social hierarchy. Ask five women and five men if you want to get a more objective perspective on it. Others usually view us more clearly than we are able to see ourselves.

The first thing a Gamma has to do is stop seeking the approval of others. Gammas are often easy to identify because when they talk, there is usually an unspoken question in their voice. This can be indicated by hesitancy or a rising tone at the end of the sentence. It’s not a coincidence that this is also how children talk, it’s an indication of instinctive approval-seeking. Like Demosthenes getting rid of his stutter with his stones at the beach, this may require an amount of practice to eradicate. Also note that rather like someone who normally represses his temper tends to lose it with a bang, the Gamma usually overdoes it when he attempts to speak with more authority; inappropriate overemphasis is a dead giveaway of low social status.

But that’s just the outward manifestation of the inner problem…. more later. In the meantime, those of you with positive suggestions might consider offering them.

Posted by Vox Day.

Voxiversity IV

I’m getting more than a little tired of economics after four months of writing RGD and more than thirty interviews in two months, so I think it makes sense to accede to the will of the readers and go with the Inferno portion of La Commedia Divina, which beat RGD by a vote of 133 to 128. I’d previously been leaning towards Commentarii de Bello Gallico, but that finished a distant fourth with only 28 votes. Here is a link to the Cary translation; those who prefer Longfellow or Norton translations may be interested in this three-way comparison site. For simplicity’s sake, I’ll use Cary supported by the bilingual edition that features Robert Pinsky’s translation.

Ironically after all that, the translation with which I’m most familiar, and which inspired my economic satire, was Lawrence Binyon’s. But I think it’s best to work with the freely available texts. Start reading Canto 1 for next Saturday.

Posted by Vox Day.

Hierarchy test: the answer key

The most popular fraternity on campus is inviting you to a rush party on a Greek-dominated campus. You’re assured that there’s a very good chance that you’re in. Do you:

a) Show up, be excited, and join. Both Alphas and Betas will answer this way, as being sought by the best group only confirms their self-regard. The Alpha, however, will likely be an officer at some point in the next four years. Remember, you can’t be at the top of the social hierarchy without being a part of it.

b) Show up, be nervous and join. This is the Delta answer. Who wouldn’t want to belong to the most popular fraternity on campus? And yet, the Delta is quite conscious of the difference between “probably” and “definitely”.

c) Show up, make an ass of yourself, and be rejected. This could be either Alpha or Gamma. Alphas are always in competition and Gammas constantly sabotage their efforts to reach their goals because they want them so badly. Desperation is seldom attractive.

d) Don’t show up and don’t join because fraternities are lame organizations for insecure people. The genuine Gamma answer. Gammas always engage in preemptive rejection. Even if they have given up trying to belong to the popular set, deep inside they would still very much like to. If you see a guy wearing a GDI sweatshirt, he’s definitely a Gamma.

e) Don’t show up and don’t join because you forgot. This is the Sigma answer. The real Sigma doesn’t feign indifference, it truly doesn’t matter to him. While I was quite pleased to be invited to rush by Delta Upsilon, it wasn’t a big deal one way or another and I just completely forgot about it. They invited me back anyhow, but by that time I was over the idea. Remember, Sigmas aren’t only strange, they tend to be unpredictable.

f) Don’t show up because you suspect a joke being made at your expense. Omega baby! It’s amazing how incredibly narcissistic losers can be. And yet, it’s not entirely impossible. Paranoia doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you and no one knows better than the Omega how cruel people can be.

g) Show up and give one of the brothers a blow-job in the bathroom. And that would be Lambda, obviously.

Posted by Vox Day.

Voxiversity IV poll

http://www.proprofs.com/polls/widget/?title=which-book-would-you-prefer-for-voxiversity-iv&theme=grey&width=429

I’d encourage those who have participated in past Voxiversities or are seriously contemplating taking part in the next one to vote. If you’re not, don’t bother.

Posted by Vox Day.

GDP grows 5.7 percent!

The BEA’s Q4-2009 Advance report:

Real gross domestic product — the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States — increased at an annual rate of 5.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009, (that is, from the third quarter to the fourth quarter), according to the “advance” estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the third quarter, real GDP increased 2.2 percent.

Given that the last report went from 3.5 percent down to 2.2 percent, what are the chances that this impressive number – more than double the average rate of economic growth over the last 50 years – will hold up? Even Wall Street isn’t pretending to take the GDP reports seriously any longer. Note that at $14,463.4, US GDP is now reported to be larger than it ever has been before.

Apparently the 89.7 percent of workers who still have jobs are exceedingly productive. As far as I’m concerned, this claim of economic growth at a 5.7% annual rate does nothing but demonstrate the increasing disconnect between the macroeconomic statistics and the actual economy.

Posted by Vox Day.

Roissy and the limits of Game

I have a great deal of respect for Roissy’s analysis of the female psyche. Even the mere terms he applies, in addition to being hilarious, provide tremendous insight for the average, clueless man who finds himself bewildered by the behavior of women around him. After all, what man could possibly assign much importance to the logical conclusions of a woman’s “rationalization hamster”. And many of the techniques he recommends will significantly increase the average man’s ability to get off on the right foot with women regardless of whether a casual encounter or marriage is the goal.

However, it must be kept in mind that Roissy’s social construction of Game is intentionally limited in two ways. The overly simplistic division of men into Alphas and Betas is the natural result of his laser-like focus on scoring vs not scoring. Either you score or you don’t score; scoring is Alpha and not-scoring is Beta. QED. And this singular, binary focus also leaves out the many other applications of the male social hierarchy that have nothing to do with women, much less sex. Note that this is not a criticism of Roissy’s construct or his conclusions, but rather a tangential expansion of it. Whereas in Game there are only Alphas who score and Betas who don’t, except for the Betas who learn the secret of becoming synthetic Alphas, I have come over time to view things in the following manner:

Alphas – the male elite, the leaders of men for whom women naturally lust. Their mere presence sets women a-tingle regardless of whether she is taken or not. Once you’ve seen beautiful married women ignoring tall, handsome, wealthy, and even famous men because that ugly old troll Henry Kissinger walked in the room, you simply can’t deny the reality of Alphadom. Example: Captain Kirk, Big from Sex in the City. Suggestion: Do you see a scoreboard? Right, so relax already!

Betas – the lieutenants, the petty aristocracy. They’re popular, they do well with women, they’re pretty successful in life, and they may even be exceptionally good-looking. But they lack the Alpha’s natural self-confidence and strength of character. They’re not leaders and they’re not the men to whom women are helplessly drawn. Most men who like to think they’re Alphas because of their success are actually Betas. Most Betas won’t change their game because they don’t really have any need or reason to do so. This is probably the easiest social slot in which to find yourself, since the Beta enjoys many of the benefits of Alphadom without being trapped in the Alpha’s endless cycle of competition. Example: Brad Pitt Suggestion: Have some compassion for the less naturally fortunate. Try to include them once in awhile.

Deltas – the great majority of men. These are Roissy’s Betas. Almost all of you reading this are Deltas despite the natural desire to believe that you are a brave and bold Alpha snowflake notwithstanding. Deal with it. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being a Delta, it’s just a simple statistical and observable reality. The sooner you accept the truth about yourself, the sooner you will be able to control your unconscious inclinations and modify your behavior in a manner that will help you achieve your goals. I’ve gone out of alphabetical order here because delta symbolizes change, which most Deltas are capable to some extent. Hence the synthetic alpha instruction set known as Game. Example: Probably you. Suggestion: Never forget that there are plenty of girls on the girl tree.

Gammas – the obsequious ones, the posterior puckerers, the nice guys who attempt to score through white-knighting, faux-chivalry, flattery, and omnipresence. All men except true Alphas will occasionally fall into Gamma behavior from time to time, this is the behavior and attitude that Roissy is attempting to teach men to recognize and avoid. The dividing line between a Gamma and a Delta is that the Gamma genuinely believes in the Gamma reality to the very core of his soul whereas the Delta is never truly comfortable with himself when he behaves in this manner despite being thoroughly indoctrinated in it by his culture. Example: Probably you if you’ve found yourself complaining about your lack of female companionship over the last two years. Suggestion: Remember that the statement “all are fallen” applies to women too. She isn’t any more naturally pure or holy or ethereal than you are.

Lambdas – the gays. They have their own social hierarchy. They can fill any role from Alpha to Omega, but they tend to play the part rather than actually be it because the heterosexual social construct only encompasses the public part of their lives. Example: Neil Patrick Harris. Suggestion: Straights will be more tolerant if you keep the bathhouse behavior behind closed doors.

Sigmas – the lone wolves. Occasionally mistaken for Alphas, particularly by women and Alphas, they are not leaders and will actively resist the attempt of others to draft them. Alphas instinctively view them as challenges and either dislike or warily respect them. Some Deltas and most Omegas fancy themselves Sigmas, but the true Sigma’s withdrawal from the pack is not a reaction to the way he is treated, it is pure instinct. Example: Clint Eastwood’s movie persona. Suggestion: Entertain the possibility that other people are not always Hell. The banal idiocy is incidental, it’s not intentional torture.

Omegas – the losers. Even the Gamma males despise them. That which doesn’t kill them can make them stronger, but most never surmount the desperate need to belong caused by their social rejection. Omegas can be the most dangerous of men because the pain of their constant rejection renders the suffering of others completely meaningless in their eyes. Omegas tend to cluster in defensive groups; the dividing line between the Omega and the Sigma is twofold and can be easily recognized by a) the behavior of male Betas and Deltas and b) the behavior of women. Women tend to find outliers attractive in general, but while they respond to Sigmas almost as strongly as they do to Alphas, they correctly find Omega males creepier and much scarier than Gamma males. Example: Eric Harris Suggestion: Your rejection isn’t entirely personal. Observe the difference in your own behavior and the way the Betas act. And try not to start off conversations with women by sharing “interesting facts” with them.

I’m not claiming that this hierarchy is science or incontrovertible fact, it’s merely the lens through which I tend to view the current sexual-social hierarchy. I think it is a little more broadly useful from a theoretical perspective than the Game construct, even if it is less immediately applicable from a tactical point of view.

Posted by Vox Day.

Mailvox: what’s a woman to do?

Retha wonders how a Christian woman can appeal to men:

I find the comments interesting. I am a Christian woman in my mid thirties. When I was young, I did not look out for a man – was too busy doing ministry work in my spare time to look for boyfriends. For that reason or some other reason, men did not approach me for dating/ courtship either. My attitude about marriage was “If we can serve God together, I may consider marrying some day. Otherwise – no way.”

I now realize that I actually want to marry and have kids, but I don’t even know how to meet men. I want to ask the Christian men here: What- except effort with my looks- can I do to be at all the kind of woman that a man who love God will want to marry?

One thing that Christian women often fail to understand is that a single-minded devotion to Jesus will drive away most men almost as effectively as a feminist woman’s narcissistic devotion to her education and career. This is true of Christian and non-Christian men alike. It’s not that men don’t respect your devotion, it’s just that they tend to consider you off the market as a sort of Protestant equivalent of a nun. You’re basically telling them that they will never be as important to you as they would be to pretty much any other woman, so it should come as little surprise that they tend to pursue those other women in preference to you.

After all, what sort of man wants to build a life with a woman who makes it unmistakably clear that his wife’s priority will always be others, not her marriage? I suppose it’s possible that you might theoretically meet a man who puts the same emphasis on ministry to others that you do, but if you consider how many men go seriously into ministry, it’s pretty clear that the odds are stacked against you. It’s about as realistic as the girl with the MBA who will only consider marrying a CEO. The fact is that there just aren’t very many of them.

So, what can you do. First, you can’t simply wave off the looks aspect. That’s the single most important element of a woman’s attractiveness to men, not so much where you rate on the 1-10 scale, but rather what sort of signals you are using your appearance to send. Most women make it very clear that they dress to please other women, not men, so if you do the opposite you will definitely stand out. I’m not talking about “going to a nightclub on Miami Beach” clothing, as much as I personally like that style, but rather wearing your hair long and down, wearing clothes that flatter most of whatever assets you happen to have, ignoring whatever the latest styles are, and paying far more attention to what the men around you happen to think looks good on you than you do to what your female friends tell you. Unless you’re trying to attract a woman, don’t dress in order to please them and their neurotic insecurities.

On the behavioral side, try to be aware of the presence of men in your vicinity. Don’t huddle with other women in public places like a herd of musk oxen trying to defend themselves; if you’re with a group of women, sit a bit back from them and scan the crowd occasionally to see who is checking out your group. Don’t look away from men who look at you. If a man is looking at you and you want to give him a shot, meet his eyes directly and smile. If he’s interested, he’ll approach you, if he’s not, he’ll smile politely, nod, and turn away. If he looks away quickly, he’s probably a gamma and may or may not approach you; if he does he’ll do so in a shy, hesitant, and overly polite manner that will make you want to kick him. Regardless, you’ve given the “all clear” signal, that’s all you really have to do. Be friendly and straightforward, and don’t be afraid to talk about your faith. If nothing else, it will protect you from all the players.

As for meeting men, I strongly suggest taking up a hobby or two that is male dominated. You’ll meet lots of men at martial arts studios, gaming stores, sports bars on game nights, car shows, and the free weight room. Set aside one evening a week to adventure into alien territory and you’ll meet more new men in a month than you have in the last year. I’ve never quite understood how people try to meet the opposite sex in places that the opposite sex never goes. If you’re hunting ducks, you don’t go to the desert, after all.

Now, you are who you are. You’re not going to change that now. But if you present yourself in an attractive and open manner, refuse to let yourself be a bitch or a wallflower, and content yourself with men who are in your physical and social league, you should be able to find what you are seeking. The Bible even says “seek and ye shall find”, so the question you have to ask yourself is if you have really been seeking or not.

Posted by Vox Day.

And the academy trembled

I have no serious academic credentials and I see little value in them, given the vast quantities of demonstrable nonsense produced on a regular basis by the credentialed. Which tends to make this particular syllabus rather amusing:

INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY

I. Course Overview

This course examines the relations between international politics and international economics. It provides an overview of the main international political economy approaches. We begin with a theoretical introduction to political economy in the first part of the course, then we explore the evolution of the international economic system and its political implications. A particular focus is devoted to the so-called ‘globalization debate’ and its evaluation, with a specific focus on trade and finance issues, as well as development and inequality. Also part of the course is dedicated to the interaction of economic issues and security.

The following books are required for the class and are available for purchase at the bookstore:

* Gilpin, Robert. 2002. The Challenge of Global Capitalism, Princeton University Press.
▪ Day, Vox. 2009. The Return of the Great Depression. WND Books.
▪ Bhagwati, Jagdish. 2007. In Defense of Globalization. Oxford University Press.
▪ Stiglitz, Joseph E. 2003 (2nd Edition). Globalization and its Discontents. Norton

I suppose I should be pleased, but mostly I just hope the professor doesn’t find himself in too much trouble.

Posted by Vox Day.