Bryan Caplan seizes upon a two-sentence Steve Sailer comment to fly into theatrical conniptions in public:

Does Steve genuinely favor denying half of Americans the right to reproduce? It’s hard to know. It is the uncertainty that he carefully cultivated that makes Sailer’s thought so scary to so many — including me. We shouldn’t have to wonder if a thinker approves of denying half the population the right to have children.

This really is Caplan at his most despicable. First, set up a bizarre counter-factual to support a quite different moral argument by analogy. The crudely-telegraphed argumentative strategy is to shift the burden of fanaticism from proponents to opponents (“hey, can’t you see that restricting immigration is just like sterilizing half the population”). Secondly, when a commentator corrects your counter-factual in the direction of historical reality — i.e. something that actually happened — deflect attention by cranking up the moral hysteria, while retreating into what seems increasingly to be Caplan’s favorite territory — unhinged deontological purism. Finally, suggest that the commentator is only mentioning historical reality in order to surreptitiously endorse your own preposterous thought-experiment as a practical program, thus exposing himself as “scary”.

Why doesn’t he just say that hyper-Nazi eugenics is wrong?  (Of course, he has, many times.) He probably wants to throw your granny into the biodiesel tanks too. Let’s talk about that rather than my project to engineer a national immigration apocalypse.

Anyone who seriously “wonders” whether Steve Sailer secretly advocates sterilizing half of the American population has released their grip on the last frayed threads of civilized conversation. Caplan is deteriorating from a nut into something far more repulsive.

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There’s enough fizzing chaos at the moment to justify one of these, isn’t there?

Special merit badges for anybody who can link at least three of these topics into a coherent insight point: nerds, Piketty (+), Thai micro-media, alien signal, killer robots, democratic crisis, and heavy whining …

(For anyone unfamiliar with local traditions: it’s an open thread.)

ADDED: “I used to think that such people were blowing smoke, deliberately lying to make a point, but I am increasingly willing to consider the possibility that they’re just stupid.” (Discuss.)

ADDED:

I dreamed I saw Samo last night Alive as you and me Says I "But Samo you're ten years dead" "You're just mindkilled" said he

— St. Rev. Dr. Rev (@St_Rev) May 26, 2014

ADDED: Cthulhoid kickstarter. (Via @PuzzlePrivateer)

… to inflict this on people:

[OK, no need for anybody else to lose their lunch over this — I’m moving it under the fold]

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You thought Slate had a lock on Cathedralist direct current? Then you probably haven’t been keeping up with The Atlantic.

I’m old enough to remember when The Atlantic Monthly was a serious magazine. That was before James Fallows took it over, and drove it into a ditch. It has since progressed to Atlantic Trench depths of comprehensive intellectual ruin. Some gratitude is in order for the clarity with which it exposes our destination, guided by the supreme Leftist Law: Any cultural institution that is not dominated by the oppressed talking about their oppression is oppressive.

As Professor Zaius explains in the comment section of the vibrant debate article:

… the judges, while they are experienced debaters and coaches themselves, don’t by and large subscribe to the notion that the “best argument” in conventional terms should win. Many, if not most, see debate as a means for advancing social justice and dismantling oppressive hierarchies of whiteness and patriarchy. Inasmuch as “logic” upholds these hierarchies and personal experiences from POC and non-linear storytelling and music fight them, then “logic” should lose.

We’re so screwed.

ADDED: “… while one has some sympathy for Hardy and the other traditional debate do-gooders, they seem to be pining for a format, and a world, that has already passed. Have a look at Twitter. Or MSNBC. Or the New York Times. Or Attorney General Eric Holder. Or any of the rest of the grievance-mongering chattering class for whom the unbeatable trump card these days is discerning ‘racism’ in their opponents. Debate isn’t what it used to be. The college kids might as well learn this brute fact sooner rather than later.”

Some instant-classic comedy at Salon.

(via @CineRobert)

Ezra Levant evaluates the new social hierarchy:

[First, the background:] Faith McGregor is the lesbian who doesn’t like the girly cuts that they do at a salon. She wants the boy’s hairdo. … Omar Mahrouk is the owner of the Terminal Barber Shop in Toronto. He follows Shariah law, so he thinks women have cooties. As Mahrouk and the other barbers there say, they don’t believe in touching women other than their own wives. … Mahrouk’s view is illiberal. But in Canada we believe in property rights and freedom of association — and in this case, freedom of religion, too. … McGregor ran to the Human Rights Tribunal and demanded that Mahrouk give her a haircut.

[…]

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By coincidence I was recalling this Cato-hosted essay by Peter Thiel, in which he states: “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.” It isn’t a message the Cato Institute is able to digest.

Consider this article by Juan Carlos Hidalgo (from the Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity). Headlined ‘How socialism has destroyed Venezuela’ it tracks the descent of what “was once South America’s richest country” into a hellish, crime-wracked, economic ruin. Socialist insanity is, of course, the immediate cause. How, though, did socialism become Venezuelan public policy? This is a question Hidalgo seems unable to imagine, let alone answer.

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If you think we’re having fun, the Left (which actually has — you know — organizations) is thrashing out some far more sensitive purge issues:

Richard Seymour, China Mieville, and Magpie Corven have, along with several others, resigned from the fledgling International Socialist Network following an internet row over interracial lesbian bondage porn and its ideological implications. […] As far as I can tell, they are little more than Cliffite Trots who’ve lately supplemented this old-fashioned, weak-tea brand of revolutionary socialism with vogue theories of “intersectionality.” Probably to compensate for the culture of institutionalized sexism that characterized the British Socialist Workers Party following its scandalous coverup of rape allegations about a year ago. […] It’s sad enough that the Left has degenerated to such a pitiful state, where it squabbles over such piddly crap. Did Seymour and co. really need to have their reputations ruined on account of it, though? Tarred as perverts and racists?

Mark Shea might not quite be the most ludicrous idiot alive (judge for yourself), but he earnestly shares the following warning — received from one of his readers. I’m putting the whole story here, because Shea’s credulity about it is so radically humiliating I can only assume he’ll want to take it down.

The Dark Enlightenment Exposed

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Is intersectionality just the greatest thing ever, or what?

Both [Laurie] Penny and [Richard] Seymour have made a point of arguing, moreover, for the latest fad in leftist thinking: intersectionality. “Intersectionality” supposedly means taking seriously the many different oppressions, and how they intersect. “My socialism will be intersectional or it will be bullshit,” Seymour has made a point of saying. Given that they are so keen to speak out against oppression in all its multi-layered forms, it seems really bad luck that they should be accused of being “racist crackers” and “white settlers.”

The entire article is comedy gold.

The Obama presidency AND intersectionality — does anyone still doubt that God is hardcore NRx?