Author Archives: Raizen

Math Added to Growing List of Racist Things

Leave a reply

I honestly don’t know what to make of this. You see the title. You have a hyperlink to a news article. But it doesn’t make any sense.

What the heck? What the flipping heck?

We live in a world where scientists have been reduced to court magicians serving the purpose of validating the autarchs. We also live in a world which somehow justifies shutting down the most prosperous societies in all of human history to avoid a mild cough. Arbitrary third example? Okay, fine: the MLP fandom.

Now, the leftists are calling math racist. To the surprise of absolutely no one, this development came out of California.

So, the place where they want to dumb down math just to virtue signal is the place where Apple somehow designs the next iPhone. It’s also the place where Google somehow came up with the Android OS, and headquarters YouTube, which is somehow disseminated across a great distance, so you can watch videos of adorable bunnies.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

It’s because of crap like this that when I apply for a job, I have to work extra hard to make the case that when I was in college, I actually learned things. What’s especially infuriating about this development for me is that when I was in college, Calculus was my favorite subject. And I tried extra hard because I wanted to amount to something.

It was only days ago that colleges started doing something like this with language. What the left is trying to do with colleges, I still don’t know. I’d have imagined that they’d want the students that they are indoctrinating to have a competitive advantage, but it seems like they’re not doing that.

Perhaps it’s hard to stoke the flames of class warfare with graduates that actually succeed.

Yet another reason to opt instead for career training programs and two-year tech schools. Not that they are necessarily stepping forward, but because traditional four-year colleges are turning back.

By the way, leftists are pretty much done with their veneer of intellectualism. I haven’t fallen for it for a long time, but their veneer has been stretched thinner than luminiferous aether, so they have to be running low on anyone stupid enough to fall for it.

Neil deGrasse Tyson is Not a Scientist.

Leave a reply

The following tweet from Neil deGrasse Tyson is ignorance, distilled:

Neil deGrasse Tyson is not a scientist. He is a social commentator. He is distinct in that his opinion is delivered with a flavor of science.

What’s interesting about his above statement is that it’s almost true, if one would only make a simple word substitution. If one were to replace the word “Science” with “truth”, he would be entirely correct.

There are three great things about truth:

  1. The truth exists regardless of whether anyone accepts it.
  2. The truth exists independent of anyone’s opinion of it.
  3. The truth exists whether “Science” agrees with it, or not.

The implication that “Science” must always be agreed with is dangerous to actual science. Real science is not about determining something to be true, then refusing to further question it. Actual scientists are skeptical, even when it comes to observations that have been repeated and are taken for granted.

Again, Neil deGrasse Tyson is not a scientist, regardless of what his accolades or diplomas actually are, or how he got them. He is a social commentator. He has an opinion, it is an opinion that is central to his commentary, his opinion is not difficult to figure out, and once you know what it is, you already know much of what there is to know about him.

Real science requires skepticism, and Neil deGrasse Tyson doesn’t have any.

Educational Institutions Pass Students Bad At English, Fail a Generation

1 Reply

The education system has long been infiltrated by the left-wing establishment. That’s not a secret.

Their infiltration of society and monopoly on the major institutions is such that they can do just about anything they want, and there isn’t much that the general population could do about it, regardless of how many of us are aware of it. But when I see what they are doing with the education system that they have uncontested control over, one question comes up:

Just what is it that they’re trying to do?

This question is especially relevant now, now that some institutions are doing away with bad marks for poor English. You know, the ability to properly express one’s ideas in a way that an English-language people will understand.

This development doesn’t mean that one can have poor English and still pass an English course, as one might interpret this story (not that that’s stopped many a graduate). This has more to do with whether an understanding of the English language is central to the subject studied, as the Daily Mail story points out:

Academics at Worcester University have also been told that if spelling, grammar and punctuation are not ‘central to the assessment criteria’, it is fairer to judge students only on their ideas and knowledge of the subject.

Sound fair? One might think, except there’s one major problem: an understanding of the English language is central to one’s success in any course taught in the English language. Saying that understanding the language in which a subject is taught should not be required for success in that subject is actually worse than saying that understanding calculus should not be required for success in advanced Physics.

When a student is being passed in spite of their ineptitude, it might seem like they’re being done a favor, but they’re actually not, and neither is anyone else. The purpose of college or university or any career-training program is to prepare students for careers in their fields by teaching them the skills needed to succeed in their respective fields.

No one wants co-workers or employees that are too inept for their jobs.

Like many stupid ideas, this one has it’s requisite good intentions:

The move comes as universities come under increasing pressure to boost the progress of ethnic minority, disabled and disadvantaged students, as well as ‘decolonise’ courses.

The implication that minority students are inherently deficient with spelling, grammar, and sentence structure is, in itself, insensitive. Ethnic minorities are certainly capable of learning English. In fact, one of the most famous English-language websites was written by a man whose first language was Armenian, and he has a page where he makes fun of bad English in the emails he receives.

If you’re a dean or professor at an English-language university, and a student is in danger of underperforming by reason of poor English, here is a step-by-step guide on how to handle this problem:

  1. Overcome the disbelief that such a student was somehow admitted into your institution.
  2. Offer this student tutoring on their language, so they’ll be in a better position to succeed in their courses. Any respectable English-language college or university should provide English workshops, tutors, or office-hours with English professors. If not, your college or university is garbage.
  3. If for any reason the above doesn’t work out, the student gets a failing grade. This signifies that the student is not ready to succeed in a competitive career world where basic language skills are essential for success.

It’s so straightforward that it’s hard to see how anyone could screw it up. If helping minorities is what you want to do, then actually help them to succeed. If you give anyone a passing grade in spite of their inability, you’re setting up that student for a future where their honest assessment would come from their employer, from whom it would be many times more devastating.

I don’t know what it is that those colleges and/or universities are actually trying to do. But whatever it is, they can have fun doing it. This is because employers actually make lists of colleges and universities that they actively avoid hiring from. If a school has a bad enough reputation for turning out poor-performing employees (or worse, activists), employers simply dumpster resumes that list that particular school. And thanks to the connected nature of today’s world, it doesn’t take long for a school’s bad reputation to get around, and there’s more at stake for schools to graduate students that actually know what they’re doing.

As for me, I’m taking more interest in targeted career programs. These respect students’ time by focusing on material that would be relevant to their career path, while eschewing gen-ed courses that do little more than add expenses to a student’s education, adding bloat to an over-swollen education system.

Aside from that, there’s still some value in two-year trade schools that focus on real-world skills and turning out students that are actually employable. It’s my understanding that these are huge in Japan, which would be another case in point about how Asians value practical skill over superfluous bloat.

Eventually, employers will have to recognize the value of targeted career training, as the diploma mills that continually turn out activists will leave them with little choice. And the sooner, the better.

Satirizing Jordan Peterson as Red Skull Illustrates Yet More Reason to Avoid American Comics

Leave a reply
Red Skull wants you to clean your room and get your life in order.

In another sign of the baffling bizarro-world we are living in, the supervillain Red Skull, as depicted by a new interpretation of the Captain America comics, was apparently based on Jordan Peterson.

Yes, the very same Jordan Peterson who wrote a book about 12 rules for life, and one of them had to do with petting cats.

Red Skull, as you may know, was originally conceptualized as a Nazi, and was depicted as fighting for Hitler himself.

On the other hand, Jordan Peterson is a clinical psychologist who, as a college professor, encouraged self-development and gave lectures about, among other things, how Hitler was a seriously evil dude.

So, what’s the thinking behind making Peterson out to be a Nazi supervillain? I don’t know, but I imagine that avoiding the cognitive dissonance involved would require an immensely skillful evasion of reality.

If there’s one takeaway to be had from Sonichu, it’s that if you can’t beat your enemies in real life, just make them out to be villains in your own comic book.

Watch out, Captain Marvel!

As he is now, Red Skull represents every boomer-aged snowflake’s greatest insecurity: that millennials and post-millennials could simply use the internet and find better ideas than what the establishment has been shitting out.

The American comic book industry’s plunge into intersectional lunacy comes at a time when Japanese manga is beating them mercilessly in their own market.

It’s to the point where, if you found out that Jordan Peterson was caricatured in Captain America, you probably discovered it outside of the comic itself.

American comic book writers should want people to actually read their comics. To this end, it would be expedient for their comics to be something that people wouldn’t avoid out of self-respect. People don’t make fun of me for reading manga, but if they found me reading Captain America, it would be hard to live down.

Assuming I actually read American comics, that is.

Thanks to humor website NotTheBee, we have an archive of a panel from Captain America from days-gone-by, from back before Cap was indoctrinated into the Cult of Woke. It’s quite moving, and an excellent example of what he has fallen from:

Jordan Peterson, Do You See What I See?

Leave a reply

What does the number of times Hitler bathed in a day have to do with the Coronavirus lockdowns?

On the surface, it might seem like the the two have nothing to do with each other, but the connection between slowing infection and manufactured disgust is nothing new, as explored in the following video.

By the way, this video actually predates the coronavirus lockdowns, which makes its contents all the more jarring:

It is a very human tendency to bring order to chaos, as leaders are expected to do. But an over-emphasis on order brings with it the risk of crossing the civilizational rubicon into madness.

Such was the case with Adolf Hitler, who initially combatted infection, not through an abundance of fear, but with a perception of civility.

That same perceived civility resulted in a sense of manufactured disgust in those who were not as “pure” or “uninfected”, and the better judgement of the Germans was overridden by a desire to further their leader’s vision of purity.

Hitler’s intention was to completely reorder society, perceiving himself as an intellectual superior who knew what was best for people, more so than the people themselves.

Sound familiar?

Twitter Infograph Warns Asian Art Communities

Leave a reply

What you’re seeing above is an infographic uploaded to Twitter by an art-oriented account, intended for Japanese artists who may be seeing a sudden surge in western viewers who are intent on influencing Japanese art, particularly anything done in the manga or anime style.

This infographic comes at a time in which a nebulous affiliation of self-styled influencers are inserting themselves into art communities, intent on ensuring that anything that an artist expresses conforms to their sensibilities.

This can be jarring to Asian artists, who come from a career-oriented culture, who are now finding out that there are western subcultures that take entertainment media so seriously that they allow it to become a part of their identity while contributing little else to society.

The infographic comes in handy for Asians who may not be familiar with certain western subversive movements, and therefore may be less prepared to identify them when such bad actors appear. Whether we call them “intersectionalists” or simply “incels”, this group of people contribute nothing to society, but regardless are characterized by a legendary sense of entitlement, and it’s helpful to understand how to respond to them appropriately.

What I find particularly fascinating is the list of identifiers for the influencers, in that they are mostly accurate. Among them are preferred pronouns, imaginary gender identification, abuse of emojis, or identifying with certain activist groups (a dead giveaway). Also interesting is that they openly identify themselves with their mental illnesses. While one shouldn’t have anything against someone who has a legitimate condition, there are those among us who misuse these identifications for sympathy.

The infographic makes an important point: the way you deal with these people is by ignoring them, or by blocking them, if need be. It is important that one must never cave in to their demands, because they will interpret it as a sign of weakness to latch onto, as the tendency of predators often is.

In spite of their intimidation tactics, the influencers have no real authority, and are in no position to police anyone’s works of artistic expression. Thus, their threats carry no real weight.

One thing that the influencers seem to overlook is that in most of the western world, works of art are protected by freedom of expression, which is encompassing in its application. Even if a work of art is not considered socially acceptable, it is still protected under the freedom of expression. In fact, freedom of expression doesn’t have much value if it doesn’t protect art that isn’t socially acceptable.

Even understanding all this, the typical Japanese person may see the intersectional movement, and be distressed at the fact that so many young people in the west seem stunted and out-of-touch with reality, even years out of school. This highlights the difference in Asian culture, as compared to the west. The fact is, Asian society heavily emphasizes an education that prepares students for a career, reinforced by close-knit families that are highly supportive. It’s hard to imagine that in such an environment, a person would somehow become a cross-dressing ANTIFA windbag that blames all their problems on white-supremacists.

Westen families, generally speaking, could learn a lot from Asian families.

In the face of waves of leftist negativity, among the finest things we can do for Asian artists is let them know that they are appreciated.

There’s something to be said for the culture that brought us Chiyo-chan.

Amazon is Going After Anime Figures Again, and it STILL Makes No Sense

Leave a reply

Amazon is back to banning anime figures on the reasoning that they “promote child exploitation or depict children or characters resembling children in a sexually suggestive manner”. An example of a figure that was banned was one of Konata Izumi (pictured above), doing neither of these things.

It seems they really didn’t learn anything, at all.

The characters depicted did nothing besides just standing there, fully clothed, doing nothing especially sexual. They were no more sexualized than any action figure you’d buy for your 10-year-old kid.

They even started going after Nendoroids, such as this one:

If they’re going to go after Nendoroids, they can also start going after Precious Moments figures, because they do just as much to “promote child exploitation or depict children or characters resembling children in a sexually suggestive manner”:

Hold on… is that hand holding? That’s a display of affection! Precious Moments is actually doing more to sexualize the characters the brand depicts than Nendoroids! How are the authoritarian moral busybodies not bazooka-crapping their collectively dainty undergarments?

Putting the manufactured nerd rage aside, I suspect that what’s going on is that a seller was targeted by frivolous complaints that weren’t properly vetted. The seller that the action was against was the same one as before, and similar merchandise was targeted.

Even the nature of the complaints was the same, suggesting that the real culprit was some Karen NPC who actually believes that going after anime figures somehow makes the world a better place, and as dimwitted as she is, she knows that something about complaints about child exploitation bypasses peoples’ better judgement. Putting aside that the characters are fictional, and therefore no children are being exploited.

The seller came forward with subsequent complaints, as shown here:

Oh no, they are NOT going after Cirno. They’ve gone too far.

Fan Trailer Shows What the Pokémon Diamond and Pearl Remakes Would Look Like With a Huge Boost in Quality

Leave a reply

When the trailer dropped for the upcoming Pokémon remakes, Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, just about everyone was underwhelmed.

(blank stare)

The Pokémon fandom is pretty awesome, and one among them decided to produce a fan trailer for the upcoming D&P remakes. The result looks like what one might expect from the single highest-grossing intellectual property of all time, if produced by a company so rich that they don’t need to turn to a bank to finance their own projects:

The trailer looks like it’s for a video game that would be worth $60. That’s pretty impressive, considering that it was made within days of the official trailer.

Isn’t it something special that one fan could pull off in days what a team of professional game developers with years of experience did not?

In fact, it makes one wonder why the professionals didn’t even bother. In light of this, I’ve come up with a theory: What if the official trailer for Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl is actually showing us Cyrus’ world?

Cyrus (pictured above) is the antagonist of the original Sinnoh games. His ambition was to reshape the universe to eliminate concepts like human emotion, which he viewed to be flawed and incomplete.

In Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, Giovanni formed a group called Team Rainbow Rocket, which was composed of leaders from other teams which were taken from grimdark parallel universes where those team leaders actually succeeded.

If the official trailer for Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl showed us what the world would look like if Cyrus succeeded, it would go a long way in explaining why the humans in that interpretation of the Sinnoh games look so unimaginative and unexpressive.

(blank stare)

Somewhere out there, someone let their save file for Pokémon Diamond, Pearl, or Platinum sit for like ten years, without beating Team Galactic. Therefore, Cyrus seized the opportunity to bring his vision of a world of Nendoroids to life.

That’s why you beat your video games, kids.

(halp)

CBS News, Do You See What I See?

2 Replies

As much as I’ve made fun of legacy media, sometimes they publish something that catches my notice, by reason of the fact that it lets on that they really know what’s going on. And in this case, it signals a potential shift in the narrative.

If you were to read the story, you might see it, too. I encourage you to do so. It’s a piece where they acknowledge that there is a pending crisis due to declining birth rates.

Isn’t it interesting how it’s not until after leftists have taken control of nearly every aspect of elected government, in addition to all the institutions they’ve previously infiltrated, that they finally figure this out?

This development is an about-face for the “depopulation movement” (as we’ll colloquially refer to it in this discussion), who in decades past had the idea that there was getting to be too many human beings for this ball of molten rock’s ability to support.

They were so persuaded of this idea that some of them have produced what is referred to as the “Jaffe memo”, which I previously examined here (I found the Jaffe memo here). The memo was produced in 1969 and presented numerous underhanded ways the depopulation movement could surreptitiously reshape society in an effort to slow population growth.

See for yourself:

Obviously, there’s no ethical way to subvert the family plans of millions of people. But for a moment, let it sink in that they actually entertained the idea of “Fertility control agents in water supply”. The 60s had some truly evil people.

Extrapolating from the ideas behind this memo, it’s easy to see why there was as much strength as there has been behind the various movements that actively tampered with the gender dynamic. These very same evil people have infiltrated society on just about every level, and they’ve been hard at work.

Knowing this, consider what it means that legacy media, one of the many, many infiltrated institutions, are acknowledging that birth rates are getting to be way too low, to the point of nearing crisis levels.

Intersectional feminism was one of the many movements that have been propped up, due to the potential damage it could do to the gender dynamic. The same could be said of the LGBTBBQ-silent-f community, and if you don’t also see it, you might be among the many victimized by the narrative, in some way.

The thinking behind propping up gender-aberration was the potential for reducing the replacement rate. But now, there’s a different problem: the replacement rate is getting to be too low. Now that the controllers of the narrative are acknowledging as much, that’s bad news for the various iterations of the gender-aberration movement.

Here is why: Because birth rates have already fallen well below the point of the depopulation movement’s liking, they no longer have a use for the various gender-aberration movements. In fact, those behind the scenes are now taking an interest in reversing the damage that these movements have already caused.

That’s pretty bad news for the gender-aberration movements themselves, considering that they’re about to lose the backing of the various institutions that have previously propped them up. Because they’re now expressing an interest in restoring the population replacement rate, they’d likewise want to prop up what has long been proven to result in a healthy replacement rate: strong masculinity, supportive femininity, traditional family, classical virtues, and a values-based society that focuses on building up each individual, rather than sacrificing individuals to feed the collective.

Sound like wishful thinking? Considering that legacy media is now acknowledging what’s happening, it doesn’t seem terribly unrealistic. When you consider just how much it takes to get legacy media to acknowledge what’s obvious to the rest of us, you can appreciate that this development was a long time coming.

Now the question is, how will those who have been tampering with society pay us all back for the damage that they’ve been causing?

I’m sure that the various victims of cancel culture, as well as everyone who has had relationships wrecked by feminism’s ideas, can think of a long list of demands. But I doubt that Bill Gates and his empire of fake meat will have the means to satisfy them all.

The CBS article made the following observation, and it’s a fun one for the many millennials out there that have been putting up with boomer-bullshit all these years:

“The cost of housing, the cost of education, all these things have become more and more difficult,” Dowell said. “I think the boomers themselves don’t realize how much harder it is for millennials today. And they think, ‘Oh yeah, when we were young we had to live, you know, on very little money, and we made do, and you can do the same.’ That’s the story, right? Well no, it really is a lot harder for young people today. It’s amazing how much harder it is.”

Even though they fancy themselves such great problem-solvers, boomers made fun of millennials with problems for having problems. Now they are paying for their arrogance by not having enough millennials around to pay for their retirement.

“Anyone can make an error, Ensign. But that error doesn’t become a mistake until you refuse to correct it.”

Grand Admiral Thrawn