Why the Left lies:

Cathedral leftoids loathe the idea that they might give aid and comfort to their non-leftoid enemies. In this scenario, they know the truth on some level, but refuse to acknowledge it (despite any journalistic ethical strictures commanding them to do so) because they believe acknowledging it will embolden and gird the spirits of those they consider horrible, no good people. To these leftoids, the prospect of Heartland Joe (Votech, Class of 1975) beaming with satisfaction that his intuition about the way the world works was right all along drives them insane with rage. Even worse, the thought that a sadistic demon like me would take an eviscerating scalpel to their egos armed with their de facto surrender papers keeps them awake at night in terror.

(The entire post is highly recommended.)

A prompt by @hugodoingthings to explore the spook-dense crypts of Roko’s Basilisk (which, inexplicably, has never latched before) led straight to this enthralling RationalWiki account. The whole article is  gripping, but the following short paragraphs stand out  for their extraordinary dramatic intensity:

Roko’s basilisk is notable for being completely banned from discussion on LessWrong, where any mention of it is deleted. Eliezer Yudkowsky, founder of LessWrong, considers the basilisk to not work, but will not explain why because he does not consider open discussion of the notion of acausal trade with possible superintelligences to be provably safe.

Silly over-extrapolations of local memes, jargon and concepts are posted to LessWrong quite a lot; almost all are just downvoted and ignored. But for this one, Yudkowsky reacted to it hugely, then doubled-down on his reaction. Thanks to the Streisand effect, discussion of the basilisk and the details of the affair soon spread outside of LessWrong. Indeed, it’s now discussed outside LessWrong frequently, almost anywhere that LessWrong is discussed at all. The entire affair constitutes a worked example of spectacular failure at community management and at controlling purportedly dangerous information.

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Does this blog even exist? Only as a malignant intelligence operation, it seems.

[The revelation begins December 11th, 2013 at 3:13 am]

Drop the purple pill and venture into the labyrinth of Gnostic-political conspiracy, where entire micro-social networks are conjured into simulated existence for dread purposes yet undisclosed. If you are reading this, you are almost certainly a fake being, or unit of disinformation supplied with an internal delusion of identity and agency (to complete the camouflage). The plot is so much more all-encompassing than you could possibly have imagined …

Peter Schiff (@ ZH):

Unlike her predecessors, Janet Yellen has never had a youthful dalliance with hawkish monetary ideas. Before taking charge of the Fed both Alan Greenspan, and to a lesser extent Ben Bernanke, had advocated for the benefits of a strong currency and low inflation and had warned of the dangers of overly accommodative policy and unnecessary stimulus. (Both largely abandoned these ideals once they took the reins of power, but their urge to stimulate may have been restrained by a vestigial bias against the excesses of Keynesianism). Janet Yellen, who has been on the liberal/dovish end of the monetary spectrum for her entire professional career, has no such baggage. As a result, we can expect her to never waver in her belief that stimulus is the answer to every economic question.

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Don’t laugh.

(Privately via zombie central.)

Some acts of national-demographic self-mortification stretch the imagination beyond its breaking point:

The Minneapolis–St. Paul area has one of the world’s largest Somali populations outside Mogadishu, with more than 80,000 residents believed to have originated from Somalia.

Seriously: Why?

… isn’t an insulting name for Obama, or even for what he has ‘wrought’. It’s a name for America, and thus for the leading spirit (or Zeitgeist) of the world. A country where support for a Harvard Law presidency ‘bottoms out’ (repeatedly) at something above 40% knows what it wants — and is getting it (good and hard). Blaming Obama for any of this is like blaming pustules for the bubonic plague.

The world deserves Obama almost as much as America does, and in many cases, even more. If the Cathedral is basically to be applauded — and who doesn’t believe that? — there’s every reason to mainline it, by putting the authentic voice of the academy in power. As the chrysalis-husk of a universal project, America is duty bound to abolish itself as a particular nation. If it defers to its own ‘propositional’ ideals, how could it not? There are even chunks of the Tea Party who kinda sorta felt it was the right thing to do. The conservative establishment certainly did, including the Republican campaign machines of the two last presidential elections. The Idea necessitates blood sacrifice, which Obamanation consummates.

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Sean Thomas on atheistic insanity.

Bryan Caplan passes on the news that “The Open Borders blog is sponsoring an Open Borders logo contest.” Everyone should get involved — it’s time to make an impact.

This is my recommendation:

(If there was an obvious symbol for selectivity I’d have preferred it.)

This series was preparing for the flight out from Cairo International Airport, to go WMD hunting in the Crescent, when a call arrived – from Fotrkd (on this thread) – turning our plans back around. It was hard to pick out the exact message from the stream of excited babble, but it was basically: “You’re not going to believe what Kerry just said to the Pakistani’s …” (who, we have to remember, are next in line for A New Beginning®.)

I’m guessing you’ve already heard it – since it’s all over the media. The Israelis string it together well (notice the encrypted message to Kerry in the URL: Ufu02Kzk2-k (!)):

“The military was asked to intervene by millions and millions of people, all of whom were afraid of descendance into chaos, into violence,” Kerry was quoted as having told Geo.

“And the military did not take over, to the best of our judgment – so far. To run the country, there’s a civilian government. In effect, they were restoring democracy,” he added.

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