Archive for July, 2015

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Origin of IRON CHAMBER OF MEMORY

Posted July 31, 2015 By John C Wright

This month I have not had a day-job, and so for the first time have had enough free time to work like a full time writer.

This is the novel I have been waiting eleven and a half years to write. I wrote the manuscript in five weeks, and spent a week polishing and revising.

I sent it off to Castalia House this Monday, so keep your fingers crossed for me. (I have also begun a new project for Castalia House called MOTHS AND COBWEBS, a juvenile, which I will describe in a later post.)

iron chamber

The novel is called IRON CHAMBER OF MEMORY.

The story idea came to me during the month of December in 2003, just a few days after my rather dramatic conversion from total Christ-hating atheism to total fidelity. I was recovering from major surgery, and still had one foot, so to speak, in the spirit world.

This story idea came to me in one moment, complete, perfect, in immense detail. I dragged myself out of bed to spend one afternoon writing the outline down in one go from start to finish.

Nothing like this has ever happened to me before, and nothing since.

I often speak of writing as if I am taking dictation from the muse. Usually I am exaggerating a little, or being a little modest. Here I am not. It is as if some other spirit than mine contrived this story, and all I have done is write it down.

The thing was eerie. There are certain ideas and themes in it which are quite a bit like other things I have written. An amnesiac hero trying to discover who he really is, for example, appears in nearly everything I write.

I can also see where the basic ideas come from: that there is a room in a house where whenever the protagonist enters, he remembers he is in love with a woman who also loves him, but only inside that chamber, and nowhere else. The conceit is taken from the deservedly obscure novel A HAUNTED WOMAN by David Lindsay. I say it is deserved obscure because Mr Lindsay did not exercise his full range of his powerful imagination here, and did not explore the several odd but logical ramifications of the idea.

But there are other themes here utterly unlike my usual fare, and other ideas I know not whence they came.

The only element I added was the setting. Originally, I meant it to be set in Oxford, England, at Magdalen College, but I since discovered a small channel island called Sercq or Sark, called a Dark Sky island, and, until 2008, the last still-functioning feudal  fief in Europe.

The small and beautiful manor house of the Lord of the island, Le Seigneurie, I had to make into something huge and haunted as Gormenghast, and I add a frankly impossible old growth forest which could not fit on the tiny real island; but aside from these indignities of poetic license, the strangest details in the story are the ones taken from life, and these are the least likely to be believed. I did not make up that Sark is a Dark Sky island, once invaded by a Nuclear Scientist, nor that the language spoken there has never been written down.

The overall vision encompassed in the story is strange, and I am not sure if it counts as science fiction or magical realism or mainstream or what it is. Not only is the narrator unreliable, reality is unreliable.

Part of it is a love story, part of it is a story of treason and revenge, part of it is hallucinatory, and part, the best part, is a metaphysical thriller after the fashion of Charles Williams, where the mystery is not who murdered whom, but what is ultimate reality.

Let me favor you, dear reader, with the opening scene:

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Unleash the Correia!

Posted July 31, 2015 By John C Wright

Your humble servant is mentioned in the Guardian newspaper in the same breath as Vox Day as being so extremely badthink as to be beyond the pale, on the grounds that Jimes Hines once slandered me because I did not like my favorite children’s cartoon aimed as children being used as a vehicle to promote the normalization of a sexual abnormality to children.

And I am one of the dread and dreaded subspecies called Christians, one of those horrors spoken of in whispers who thinks suicide a sin, abortion a Carthaginian horror, sodomy an abomination, and lying is wrong. You know, one of those people that, since the Fifth Century or so, have been running Western Civilization, and who is solely responsible for all of its advances.

Larry Correia fisked the damned column (I use the word with exquisite theological precision) so you don’t have to.

The underlying article is so boring, so predicable, so foolishly smug and wrongheaded that it would be otherwise intolerable to read. Liek viewing Cthulhu when Rlyeh arises, you would loose your sanity points.

Dear heavens, how I admire and love Mr Correia! He deserves the title Monster-Fib Hunter International. I suspect that the Bene Gesserit Witches together with Mentor of Arisia have been cross-breeding human beings for a hundred generations to bring out the awesomeness gene, and finally succeeded with him. He is a second-stage lensman and the Kwizach Haderack. There is no other explanation.

http://monsterhunternation.com/2015/07/31/fisking-the-guardians-latest-sad-puppy-of-the-week-article

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A (Not Quite) Complete List Of Things Supposedly Caused By Global Warming

Posted July 31, 2015 By John C Wright

Some of these links may be bad, but enough should be good to show the general trend. We are not dealing with a scientific theory, but a cult belief.

A (Not Quite) Complete List Of Things Supposedly
Caused By Global Warming

Acne , agricultural land increase , Afghan poppies destroyed , Africa devastated,  Africa in conflict, , African aid threatened , African summer frost , aggressive weeds , More Toxic Poison Ivy , air pressure changes , airport malaria , Agulhas current , Alaska reshaped , moves , allergy season longer , alligators in the Thames , Alps melting , Amazon a desert , American dream end , amphibians breeding earlier (or not) , anaphylactic reactions to bee stings , ancient forests dramatically changed , animals head for the hills , animals shrink , Antarctic grass flourishes , Antarctic ice grows , Antarctic ice shrinks , Antarctic sea life at risk , anxiety treatment , algal blooms , archaeological sites threatened , Arab Spring , Arctic bogs melt , Arctic in bloom , Arctic ice free , Arctic ice melt faster , Arctic lakes disappear , Arctic tundra to burn , Arctic warming (not), Atlantic less salty , Atlantic more salty , atmospheric circulation modified , attack of the killer jellyfish , avalanches reduced , avalanches increased , Baghdad snow , Bahrain under water , bananas grow , barbarisation , beer shortage , beetle infestation , bet for $10,000 , better beer , big melt faster , billion dollar research projects , billion homeless , billions face risk , billions of deaths , bird distributions change , bird loss accelerating , birds shrinking , bird strikes , bird visitors drop , birds confused , birds decline (Wales) , birds driven north , birds return early , bittern boom ends , blackbirds stop singing , blackbirds threatened , Black Hawk down , blood contaminated , blue mussels return , bluetongue , brain eating amoebae , brains shrink , bridge collapse (Minneapolis) , Britain one big city , Smaller loaves of Bread , Britain Siberian , brothels struggle , brown Ireland , bubonic plague , budget increases , Buddhist temple threatened , building collapse , building season extension , bushfires , business opportunities , business risks , butterflies move north, camel deaths , cancer deaths in England , cannibalism , cannibalism again , caterpillar biomass shift , cave paintings threatened , childhood insomnia, Cholera , circumcision in decline , cirrus disappearance , civil unrest , cloud increase , coast beauty spots lost , cockroach migration, , coffee threatened , cold climate creatures survive , cold spells (Australia) , cold wave (India) , computer models , conferences , conflict , conflict with Russia , consumers foot the bill , coral bleaching , coral fish suffer , coral reefs dying , coral reefs grow, coral reefs shrink , coral reefs twilight, Cabbage Shortage , cost of trillions , cougar attacks, crabgrass menace,  cradle of civilisation threatened , creatures move uphill, crime increase , crocodile sex, crops devastated , crumbling roads, buildings and sewage systems , curriculum change , cyclones (Australia),   danger to kid’s health , Darfur , Dartford Warbler plague , death rate increase (US) , deaths to reach 6 million, Dengue hemorrhagic fever , depression , desert advance , desert retreat , destruction of the environment , disappearance of coastal cities, disasters , diseases move from animals to humans , diseases move north , dog disease , Dolomites collapse , dozen deadly diseases , drought,   ducks and geese decline , dust bowl in the corn belt , early marriages , early spring , earlier pollen season , Earth biodiversity crisis , Earth dying , Earth even hotter , Earth light dimming , Earth lopsided, Earth melting , Earth morbid fever , Earth on fast track , Earth past point of no return , Earth slowing down , Earth spins faster, Earth to explode , Earth’s poles shift , earth upside down , earthquakes , Specifically the 2015 Nepal earthquake , earthquakes redux , earthquakes redux 2 , Egypt revolt , El Niño intensification , end of the world as we know it , erosion , emerging infections, encephalitis, English villages lost , equality threatened , Europe simultaneously baking and freezing,  eutrophication , evolution accelerating , expansion of university climate groups, extinctions (human , civilisation,  logic , Inuit , smallest butterfly , cod, ladybirds , pikas , polar bears,   possums , walrus,   toads , plants , salmon , trout , wild flowers , woodlice , a million species , half of all animal and plant species, mountain species , not polar bears , barrier reef , leaches , salamanders , tropical insects)experts muzzled , extreme changes to California , fading fall foliage , fainting , famine ,  farmers benefit , farmers go under , farm output boost , fashion disaster , fever , figurehead sacked , fir cone bonanza , fish bigger , fish catches drop , fish downsize,  fish catches rise , fish deaf, fish get lost , fish head north , fish stocks at risk , fish stocks decline , five million illnesses , flames stoked , flesh eating disease , flood patterns change , floods,  floods of beaches and cities , flood of migrants, flood preparation for crisis , Florida economic decline , flowers in peril , fog (more) in San Francisco , fog (less) in San Francisco , food poisoning, food prices rise , food prices soar , food security threat (SA), football team migration , footpath erosion, forest decline , forest expansion , frog with extra heads , frostbite , frost damage increased , frosts , fungi fruitful , fungi invasion , games change , Garden of Eden wilts , geese decline in Hampshire , genetic diversity decline, gene pools slashed , giant oysters invade,  giant pythons invade , giant squid migrate , gingerbread houses collapse , glacial earthquakes , glacial retreat,  glacial growth , glacier grows (California) , glacier wrapped , global cooling , global dimming, glowing clouds , golf course to drown , golf Masters wrecked , grandstanding , grasslands wetter , Great Barrier Reef 95% dead , Great Lakes drop , great tits cope , greening of the North , Grey whales lose weight , Gulf Stream failure , habitat loss , haggis threatened , Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome,  harmful algae , harvest increase , harvest shrinkage , hay fever epidemic , health affected , health of children harmed, health risks, heart disease, heart attacks and strokes (Australia), heat waves, hibernation affected,   hibernation ends too soon , hibernation ends too late , high court debates , HIV epidemic , homeless 50 million , hornets , horses shrink , human development faces unprecedented reversal , human fertility reduced, human health risk , human race oblivion , hurricanes , hurricane reduction , hurricanes fewer , hurricanes not , hydropower problems , hyperthermia deaths , ice age , ice sheet growth , ice sheet shrinkage ,  icebergs , illegal immigration , illness and death , inclement weather , India drowning , infrastructure failure (Canada) , industry threatened , infectious diseases,  inflation in China , insect explosion, insurance premium rises , Inuit displacement , Inuit poisoned , Inuit suing , invasion of cats , invasion of crabgrass , invasion of herons , invasion of jellyfish , invasion of king crabs , invasion of midges,  island disappears , islands sinking , Creation of ISIS , itchier poison ivy , jellyfish explosion , jets fall from sky , jet stream drifts north , Kew Gardens taxed , kidney stones , kidney stones again , killer cornflakes , killing us , kitten boom , koalas under threat , krill decline , lake and stream productivity decline , lake empties , lake shrinking and growing , landslides , landslides of ice at 140 mph , lawsuits increase, lawsuit successful,  lawyers’ income increased (surprise surprise!) , lawyers want more , legionnaires’ surge , lives saved , lizards change sex , Loch Ness monster dead , Locust plagues suppressed , Longer wprk breaks , Lopsided Earth , lush growth in rain forests,   Malaria,   mammoth dung melt , mango harvest fails , Maple production advanced , Maple syrup shortage , marine diseases, marine food chain decimated, Meaching (end of the world) , Mediterranean rises , megacryometeors , Melanoma , Melanoma decline , meteors from space , methane emissions from plants , methane burps , methane runaway , melting permafrost , Middle Kingdom convulses , migration , migration difficult (birds) , migratory birds huge losses , microbes to decompose soil carbon more rapidly , minorities hit, monkeys on the move , Mont Blanc grows, monuments imperiled, moose dying, more bad air days,   more research needed, mortality increased, mountain (Everest) shrinking,  mountaineers fears,  mountains break up , mountains green and flowering,   mountains taller , mortality lower , murder higher ,  Myanmar cyclone , narwhals at risk , National security implications , native wildlife overwhelmed , natural disasters  quadruple , new islands , next ice age , NFL threatened, Nile delta damaged , noctilucent clouds , no effect in India, Northwest Passage opened, nuclear plants bloom, oaks dying , oaks move north,  ocean acidification , ocean acidification faster , ocean dead zones unleashed , ocean deserts expand , ocean waves speed up , oceans noisier , opera house to be destroyed , outdoor hockey threatened,   ozone repair slowed, ozone rise , Pacific dead zone , penguin chicks frozen, personal carbon rationing, pest outbreaks , pests increase, phenology shifts , plankton blooms , plankton destabilised , plants lose protein , plants march north, plants move uphill,  polar bears aggressive , polar bears cannibalistic, polar bears deaf,   polar bears drowning,   polar bears eating themselves,   polar tours scrapped , popcorn rise , porpoise astray , profits collapse, prostitution, prostitution (again), psychiatric illness,   puffin decline,  radars taken out , railroad tracks deformed , rainfall increase , rape wave , refugees , reindeer endangered , release of ancient frozen viruses , resorts disappear , rice threatened, rice yields crash,  rift on Capitol Hill , rioting and nuclear war, Rise and Fall of Rome,    river flow impacted , rivers raised , roads wear out , robins rampant,   rocky peaks crack apart , roof of the world a desert, rooftop bars , Ross river disease , ruins ruined,  Russia under pressure , salinity reduction , salinity increase , Salmonella,  Salmon Decline,  satellites accelerate , school closures , sea level rise , sea level rise faster , seals mating more , sewer bills rise , severe thunderstorms , sex change , sexual promiscuity , shark attacks , sharks booming , sharks moving north , sheep shrink , shop closures , short-nosed dogs endangered , shrinking ponds , shrinking shrine , ski resorts threatened , skin cancer , slow death , smaller brains , smog , snowfall increase , snowfall heavy,   soaring food prices, societal collapse , soil change , songbirds change eating habits , sour grapes , space problem , spectacular orchids , spiders invade Scotland , squid aggressive giants , squid population explosion , squid tamed , squirrels reproduce earlier , stingray invasion , storms wetter , stormwater drains stressed , street crime to increase, subsidence , suicide , swordfish in the Baltic , Tabasco tragedy , taxes , tectonic plate movement , teenage drinking , terrorism , terrorism again , threat to peace , ticks move northward (Sweden) , tides rise , tigers eat people , tomatoes rot , tornado outbreak , tourism increase , trade barriers, trade winds weakened , traffic jams , transportation threatened , tree foliage increase (UK),   tree growth slowed , trees in trouble , trees less colourful , trees more colourful , trees lush , tropics expansion , tropopause raised , truffle shortage, truffles down , turtles crash , Turbulence in air travel , turtle feminised , turtles lay earlier , UFO sightings , UK coastal impact , UK Katrina , uprooted – 6 million , Vampire bats , Vampire moths , Venice flooded , violin decline , volcanic eruptions , volcanic eruptions redux , Iceland volcano eruption,   walrus pups orphaned , walrus stampede , war , war between US and Canada , wars over water , wars sparked , wars threaten billions , wasps , water bills double , water scarcity (20% of increase), water stress , weather out of its mind , weather patterns awry , Western aid cancelled out,  West Nile fever , whales lose weight , whales move north , whales wiped out , wheat yields crushed in Australia , wildfires, wind shift , wind reduced,  wine – harm to Australian industry , wine industry damage (California),   wine industry disaster (France),  wine – more English   wine industry disaster (US),  wine – more English , wine –  England too hot , wine -German boon , wine – no more French ,  wine passé (Napa) , wine stronger , winters in Britain colder , winter in Britain dead , witchcraft executions , wolves eat more moose , wolves eat less, workers laid off , World at war , World War 4 , World bankruptcy , World in crisis , World in flames , Yellow fever.

and all on 0.006 deg C per year! 

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Reviewer Praise for TRANSHUMAN AND SUBHUMAN

Posted July 30, 2015 By John C Wright

A rather nice review:

http://carlos-carrasco.livejournal.com/1348.html

If you have never understood the attraction that science fiction has for so many of us, Mr. Wright’s essays might just explain it to you. If you are already a fan, you will love his analysis of the genre, its voices and various visions for various tomorrows. While it was pretty heady in places, the writing was never dense and certainly never dull.

Quite the contrary, it was laugh-out-loud funny in many places. My favorite case in point would be the essay, “The Desolation of Tolkien.” It is Mr. Wright’s eviscerating critique of the second Hobbit movie and in reading it I finally found the peace which that cinematic act of vandalism robbed from me. I laughed so hard reading his review of the film that every shadow that movie had darkened my soul with was exorcised from me forever.

[…]

Mr. Wright gives us an Eagles of Manwe-eye view of the battlefield and the forces arrayed on it, his descriptions delivered through the delightfully adroit juggling of Snow White and Aristotle, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Gender Theory, transhumanism, the Gnosticism of Arthur C Clarke, the hedonism and patriotism of Robert Heinlein, the historicism of Isaac Asimov, Ayn Rand’s Objectivism, this-ism and that-ism and the glorious Catholicism which answers them all.
Mr. Wright’s love of the genre is evident on every page of the book and you might just find it to be contagious.

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Conspiracy or Code of Conduct?

Posted July 30, 2015 By John C Wright

One of the arguments against the Anthropogenic Global Falsehood Theory is that so many scientists cannot be cooperating in maintaining a falsehood because such a conspiracy could not be maintained secretly.

I propose a simple rebuttal: the thing is not a conspiracy. It is a code of conduct that springs out of the worldview called Political Correctness.

When a large group of people take it as a maxim of their code of conduct that believing what is politically useful rather than what is true, it is not a secret that they do not believe nor say the truth. This is not a conspiracy except in the sense that Taoism or Monarchism is a conspiracy.

It is a shared worldview. Political Correctness differs from other shared worldviews in that it is, at its core, at its root, utterly dishonest. Political Correctness is the attempt to think whatever is approved thought, and not to think the truth. Whether it counts as lying when you yourself pretend you believe the lie with all your might is an interesting question for a psychopathologist. From a practical point of view, it is a lie.

So if everyone in the worldview lies, and lies in the same way about the same topics, this is not a conspiracy. It is not secret. Everyone outside the cult (who cares to look) knows political correctness is a lie.

It is a lie about … everything.

  Read the remainder of this entry »

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My Experience with Global Warming

Posted July 29, 2015 By John C Wright

I received this letter from a reader. It contains the clearest reasons for skepticism about the Global Warming Hoax as anyone could wish. He asked me not to print his name.

Please note that his request for anonymity is perfectly reasonable, given the climate of the time in which we live. I add this as one more evidence that my skepticism is reasonable. When one has the truth on one’s side, mob tactics are not needed.

Mr. Wright,

Years ago in college I would say I was not a leftist, but I did buy into the global warming nonsense because of an appeal to authority. I took a class in Oceanography and the professor was adamant about it. I knew I was ignorant and unstudied in the subject so I gave him the benefit of my trust.

Months later I got in an argument with a roommate, drinking beer and doing homework, where I took the positive and he the negative; he accused the UN climate panel and the entire mainstream scientific establishment of being corrupt. Politicians using it to gain power, and unscrupulous scientists using it to get a paycheck. My mind rejected it as being such an absurd collaboration worthy of the title conspiracy, and I rebutted with the maxim about the only way to keep a secret between two people.

That very month the University of East Anglia emails broke. I was utterly wrong, he right.

The BBC did a pretty good expose of it I watched as it came out. I had since gone to great efforts to find copies of it posted online but they were all removed due to “copyright” reasons and the BBC scrubbed all references, even the title and author of the documentary from their site. I don’t have access to research databases but it wouldn’t have surprised me if they scrubbed it from there too. Down the memory hole.

I have a close friend who is a historian, and he has hard copies of pro-communist issues of major American newspapers which when you go to them in a digital format those dates (from the 1940s to 1960s) are mysteriously missing.

The book Nineteen Eighty Four was influential for me and it amazed me later I wasn’t able to find aforementioned documentary. As I get older more of Nineteen Eighty Four is coming true. The city is installing cameras at every intersection and you can’t get away from telescreens even at gas stations now. The world wide web has turned into an all seeing eye. Even this email will be read and archived for government purposes.

In any case here is just another bit of data compiled this month I saw on a forum I lurk showing explicitly where NOAA “adjusted” their data to show the hottest month on record. http://www.survivalistboards.com/showthread.php?t=400800

Thanks for your website. I find it very good. Your post brought up this memory and I would like to thank you and share my experience.

Sincerely, [Name withheld by request]

P.S. I later found out it was common knowledge at the university that specific professor had a habit of plagiarizing and stealing research from other professors and many would not work with him, and much of his research was funded by NOAA who had been implicated in fabricating data for political ends.

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A Question about the Global Warming Hoax

Posted July 29, 2015 By John C Wright

Read it and weep:

https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2015/07/27/mind-blowing-temperature-fraud-at-noaa/

The measured US temperature data from USHCN shows that the US is on a long-term cooling trend. But the reported temperatures from NOAA show a strong warming trend.

They accomplish this through a spectacular hockey stick of data tampering, which corrupts the US temperature trend by almost two degrees.

The biggest component of this fraud is making up data. Almost half of all reported US temperature data is now fake. They fill in missing rural data with urban data to create the appearance of non-existent US warming.

Voila: Global Warming is make-believe science based on make-believe data.

The hoax was clear from the beginning for those with eyes to see when the same parties, in one case the same man, called for curtailing fossil fuels and modern industrial technology, bigger government and global government, in order to stop Global Cooling in the 1970s. “Opposite problem, same solution” is not the slogan of sanity.

The hoax was clear from the beginning for those with eyes to see because no one spoke in public about technical solutions to the problem. To raise the albedo of the Earth, for example, and ensure more solar radiation was reflected into space hence lowering Earth’s average temperature, cutting down the Amazon jungle would be the optimal solution. Anyone actually interested in lower the global heat would be actually discussion how actually to do it. They were not.

The hoax was clear from the beginning for those with eyes to see because of the hysteria surrounding it. It was a scare, a panic, and there was no more evidence for it than for the DDT scare, the ALAR scare, the radon scare, the mercury in the fish scare, the acid rain scare, the hole in the ozone layer scare, the power cables causing cancer scare, mobile phone towers causing cancer scare, the chloroflourocarbons scare, the overpopulation scare, the salmonella scare, the Mad Cow disease scare, and so on. Have you ever heard even one retraction or apology for any of these false alarms, even long after the fraud was exposed? Is DDT available even thought Rachel Carson’s mass-murdering fraud is well known to have been scientifically absurd?

The hoax was exposed (even to those without eyes to see) when Phil Jones, of the East Anglia Climate Research Unit, refused to reveal the raw data the CRU had used for its forecast models with these words: “Why should I share this data with you, when your goal is to find something wrong with it?”

And he destroyed the data when it was subpoenaed, rather than turn it over.

That is not the way scientists talk. That is not the way scientists act. That is the way propagandists talk and act. Activists. Advocates. Ad-men. Hoaxsters. Scam Artists. Liars.

The hoax was exposed when the ‘hide the decline’ emails from East Anglia University went public in 2009.

How is it possible any sane man is still taking global warming seriously in 2015, years later?

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Theist v Atheist

Posted July 23, 2015 By John C Wright

I have been exploring some argument for and against theism and atheism in my biweekly columns at EveryJoe. Unfortunately, the constraints of time and patience do not allow me to state each argument at length, and so, as a gift to my readers, I here publish some of the discussion that did not see print. Make of it what you will.

The strongest argument in favor of one model over another is how much it explained, how clearly, without recourse to special pleading, lapses in logic, or ad hoc. I propose that while the Christian religion contains mysteries certain to daze even the most patient of theologians, it is nonetheless the more robust, on the grounds that it requires fewer assumptions and leaves far less unexplained. For the atheist, nearly everything his worldview seeks to explain is left unexplained, marked off with a mere somehow.

While it is possible (in that it is not a logical self contradiction) that we live in a universe where irrational and non-deliberate chemical and evolutionary processes gave rise to creatures like ourselves capable of reason and deliberation, and that our reason somehow is able to deduce and predict correctly some of the processes of that material universe as well as the imponderable truths of logic, aesthetics, law and ethics, which just so happen somehow to apply to and work inside the material universe as well, it requires a leap of faith to believe that this is the case here in the real universe in which we actually live.

Where is the proof that the real universe behaves in this way?

Where is even a single example?

We have never seen any irrational process lead to a rational result, nor any non deliberate process give rise to a deliberate conclusion, and so our assumption that this somehow happened in the past rests on no evidence, and involves a seeming paradox of something arising from nothing, the paradox of beauty coming from randomness, of ethics springing from remorseless Darwinian struggles to survive, of logic and science arising from unintentional by products of brain chemistry.

And somehow, nearly every human being who has ever lived has had a joy for music and a fear of ghosts, two things which Darwinian selection could not possibly select into existence.

What natural process made it so that natural processes derive order out of chaos without any intention of creating order is also an unanswered somehow.

You see, even if it were true that Darwinian evolution creates order out of disorder (it is not), the question of how Darwinian evolution came to have this property, who or what makes evolution be something that creates order out of disorder, is not answered by the atheist worldview. The atheist must either dismiss the question as unanswerable because it is beyond human knowledge, or must dismiss the question as unanswerable because it is incoherent conceptually, that is, not a real question (like asking how far up is ‘up’?). That dismissal is yet another somehow, a thing the model does not explain.

It would not be an act of faith for any atheist who had seen an irrational primate evolve into a man to believe that order can arise from disorder. Indeed, even seeing a designed system like a computer be engineered into having self awareness and a moral sense would affirm that the hypothesis of order from chaos were reasonable because he would have some reason to believe it were possible. None have ever seen such a thing. As it is, the atheist walks by faith, not by sight.

The assumption that human reason comes from a rational creature, a rational divine creature with a mind, who designed us deliberately to be rational like himself is a less paradoxical assumption, and does not contain the dubious somehows mentioned above. God himself is dubious, the king of somehow, but the explanation of how and why these other things arose becomes coherent granting this doubtful assumption.

And, indeed, the incomprehensible axiom in the theist model concerns a being alleged to be incomprehensible, which is an assumption less vulnerable to skeptical question than the atheist model.

The atheist model requires the assumption that fundamental things we know about human and animal nature, such as that we have free will where animals do not, are merely gross illusions, bewilderingly universe. It is the greater coherency of the theorem which makes it the more reasonable of the two.

Let us turn to specific arguments to show this greater coherency.

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Murder Incorporated Denies Wrongdoing

Posted July 23, 2015 By John C Wright

On the radio, one of the top-of-the-hour news blurbs was that Planned Parenthood dismissed all allegations from an unnamed video as being fraudulent, an attempt to scare women and hinder their reproductive rights.

Nothing more was said. That was given as straight news, as if it were a newsworthy item. There was no context, no explanation, and the other side of the story was simply “pretended”out of existence.

The unnamed video, of course was the one where a top officer for Planned Parenthood (as Murder Incorporated is called on the cubicular bizzaro world, where all things are backward) was dickering for money over how much for each organ harvested from late term abortions. She described how the forceps would grasp the dismembered baby body in the proper spot, so as to not damage the expensive kidneys, lungs, or other juicy bits that bring a fine price on the medical meat market.

It is on tape, the person is speaking, you can watch it for yourself. That is what the news reported Planned Parenthood airily dismissed and denied, without bothering even to say what was being denied.

I used to work in the newspaper business. This was not how news is reported. Newsmen do not simply read the press releases of their advertisers. Even the slimiest Madison Avenue ad-man does not try to deceive the viewer into thinking he is not seeing an ad. Even the slimiest would not package their propaganda as news.

I was more revolted than I can put into words, especially when I think of the effort honesty newsmen expend finding the real story and printing the truth, or at least telling both sides. This is antinews, the thing that destroys news.

Exasperated by the sheer juvenile dishonesty of this, as a public service, I here reprint a list of the 41 companies that have directly funded Planned Parenthood. Read the remainder of this entry »

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It is Done! Hugo Voted!

Posted July 22, 2015 By John C Wright

I sat down and cast my Hugo ballots tonight, just an hour ago, online. Naturally, I voted for myself wherever possible.

Sorry, Col Kratman, but I thought you were not interested in the award anyway.

And I voted for my editor Vox Day, who as far as I am concerned, is the best editor I have ever worked with. Although my several other editors, including George RR Martin (who has forgotten he and I worked together to our mutual satisfaction) were kind enough, and professional and thorough, and I am grateful to them, none of the others made specific suggestions that specifically improved my work, or discussed my works with me, other than the very minimum.

With Larry Correia off the list, I voted for Jim Butcher’s SKIN GAME in the number one spot for best novel.

Read the remainder of this entry »

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From the Pen of Larry Correia

Posted July 21, 2015 By John C Wright

A public service announcement (http://monsterhunternation.com/2015/07/20/sad-puppies-update-dont-forget-to-vote/)

For once I agree with GRRM. Everybody should vote. The deadline is coming up fast.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/20/george-rr-martin-hugo-awards-vote-game-of-thrones-science-fiction?CMP=share_btn_fb

Since we wrote a novella worth of giant blog posts back and forth, GRRM knows damned good and well the Sad Puppies campaign wasn’t motivated by racism or sexism, but that doesn’t stop him from casually tossing the “neo-nazi” accusation out there… but you should believe him when he says there was like totally never any political bias in the system.

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Great Books and Genre Books

Posted July 17, 2015 By John C Wright

Below is a reprint of several columns first printed in this space in 2007, with minor changes.

As much as it pains me to say it, my reluctant conclusion is that there is no great Science Fiction literature.

Now, before you get out your crying bags, fanboys, keep in mind that the standard for being a Great Book is extremely, absurdly high. It is the best of the best of the best. There is no Western that makes the cut for being a Great Book; no mystery novel; no horror novel (unless we stretch a point to include HAMLET, because it has a ghost scene). One might even argue that no romance novel that makes the cut, not even GONE WITH THE WIND, and that is a damn fine novel. Genre writing does not reach the stratospheric heights of Homer, Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, and Goethe.

Still, it does not sit well. Let us look further, to see if this unpleasant conclusion can be defended, or if there is some exception or escape from it. For this let us break the question into parts.

  • First, what makes a Great Book great?
  • Second, what makes a Great Idea?
  • Third, what makes Great Literature Great?
  • Finally, what makes Good Science Fiction Good?

This final question is of most interest to me (as one might expect, being a science fiction writer) so it also needs to be broken down further:

  • What is Science Fiction?
  • How does Science Fiction differ from Great Literature?
  • Does Science Fiction have a universal, timeless, eternal appeal?
  • Is the Best SF good enough to be Great?

Let us examine each of these questions in order.

Read the remainder of this entry »

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Wright on Brainstorm

Posted July 14, 2015 By John C Wright

Announcement:

Please register for Brainstorm with John C. Wright on Jul 16, 2015 from 7:00 PM to 8:30 PM EDT at:

https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/5586859741601403906

This is an Open Brainstorm session with 5x Hugo nominee John C. Wright

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

The event can host to 500 people; there are already 60 people registered.

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More Reviewer Praise for SOMEWHITHER

Posted July 14, 2015 By John C Wright

From the pen of Russel Newquist

http://russellnewquist.com/2015/07/somewhither-book-review/

I don’t recall the exact scene described here from the book – although it’s very possible that he was, in fact, describing several scenes in the book mashed into one description. But the short version of my review is this: the book is exactly as awesome as that description makes it sound. In other words, if that description is right up your alley, you will love this book. If that description doesn’t do it for you… this is not the book for you.

Fortunately I am right smack in the target audience of this book, to the point that when I read that post I showed it to my wife and said, “I’m buying this book the day it comes out.” I didn’t quite make that, because they stealth released it on me last week. But when I realized on Sunday afternoon that it was out, I literally turned off the show that I was watching, ordered it, and started reading.

The opening chapter of this book was amazing, and can be read for free on Mr. Wright’s blog. If you enjoy that… well, you’re going to get a lot more of it. This book is a giant blast of crazy, and in the best possible way. I recommend it highly.

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Reviewer Praise for SOMEWHITHER

Posted July 14, 2015 By John C Wright

From the pen of Benjamin Wheeler.

Read the whole thing here: https://millennialking.wordpress.com/2015/07/14/review-somewhither-by-john-c-wright/

This book is almost the perfect book. I want the deep philosophical questions, the damsels in distress, the sword fights. I was getting frustrated when Ilya was having trouble getting through the various troubles in his way. Not in the bad way, but rather, just a sort of ‘Come oooonnn, maaaann!” sorta deal. Towards the end, especially at the Fated Weapons Armory, he starts to get it, and the book improves greatly in terms of the Main Character department.

A great read, a great thinking piece and great villains in one package to benefit of all. We are not slaves when we do good! So buy the book!

PS. Should Castalia House put out a hardcover as they did with Awake in the Night Land, I would buy it in an Instant!

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