All it Takes is One Complaint

Apparently, for Mailchimp to cancel your account. I’ve used Mailchimp for years, and stuck with them through the degradation of their interface, to the point where the site is barely usable, but that’s probably going to have to change now. It’s not that the complaint was libelous; it is – Stefan is an anarchist, not a “nationalist” or a “white nationalist” (something which is a contradiction in terms). It’s that the company will cancel your account immediately after a single false accusation of wrongthink. This response was so quick and the accusation so ridiculous that it makes me think that…

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Align Your Priorities for Creative Output

Life is full of demands. Life is full of obligations. Life is full of temptations. Life is often too full of things that each of us wishes to do, and the time during the day is too short to get it all done. The speed of modern life doesn’t help, and it is all too easy to find oneself caught up in the cacophony of urban activity and feel completely drained every day. This is the reality of limited time and unlimited wants. When it comes to figuring out how all of it goes together, I have found that priorities…

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10 Ways to Make Your Protagonist Likable

I’ve cautioned in the past regarding making a protagonist in a story a “Mary Sue” type of character. In short, you don’t want to make a character that lives out your own power fantasies and to whom the plot offers little resistance to the character’s overwhelming power. It’s good to avoid characters like this, but sometimes writers tend to go too far in the opposite direction, creating wimpy, base, or unlikeable characters that the audience doesn’t really care about. In order to avoid having a character feel too super-powered, they instead make them weak or detestable. This is not wise;…

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Stylization and Aesthetics

Rob Liefeld sells comics. His detractors are often at a loss to explain why, and while Rob is one of the most lambasted artists in comics, he continues to be successful. I got this impressive cover off of an extensive article dedicated to bashing Rob. Rob sells comics because he sells style. His images are not intended to be realistic, but grotesque. They stand out and make you pay attention. The heroes are bigger. The guns are bigger. The swords are swordier. It’s something other artists could learn from. At the same time, though, the complaint regarding technical issues is…

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Cultural and Political Inertia

Most of you know what inertia is – Objects in motion tend to stay in motion; objects at rest tend to stay at rest. The biggest effort is the first inch you roll a boulder. Then everything gets easier; then it keeps going on its own. Once that boulder is rolling, don’t get in its way. The same thing happens in politics and culture. It’s difficult to enact changes, but once the revolution happens, it’s hard to slow down. Everything that is taken for granted can go out the window. You can see this with the transformations that happened in…

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Judging things by their outcomes

This post is beyond the contest between consequentialism and deontology, before anyone starts firing up his philosophy brain. I notice in our society there is a profound resistance to judging actual outcomes, whether it is a public program, government service, educational process, or even a workout routine. The tendency is to try to judge either the process for its own sake or to judge the intended outcomes of the process. A workout program seems fun at the gym – it’s a great program! But… did you gain strength and muscle, cut fat, or increase your athletic capacity? We can’t abandon…

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Boomer Economist vs. innerne’ pr0n

I really don’t know how to write about Paul Krugman. Others have talked about his economics which is beyond my scope here (in short – the criticism is that he’s bad at prediction and engages in nostalgianomics), but when it comes to something like this, it’s hard to know where to begin: This is like a piece of post-modern art, only it actually means something. It’s a portrait of a boomer, painted with the boomer’s own words. Mike Cernovich had this to say: Yes, obviously the idea that someone “compromised” his IP address to download child pornography is absurd, but…

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Disney Star Wars may provoke an artistic renaissance

Not because it’s good. Oh no, it was very, very far from good. And yet it may be the shock that wakes people up from the cultural stupor of the corporate period and gets them to either stop consuming entirely (starvation) or gets them to look at non-corporate alternatives, most of which are fare more original and better executed than the drivel that has been pooped out by Disney the last few years. That incentive could drive lots of money – and therefore talent – back to writing classic stories. The meta-narrative of Disney Wars, which has primarily been about…

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Romance Writers Implode

Corporate cancer has afflicted the romance writers: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/01/08/romance-writers-america-cancels-awards-program-writer-racism-controversy/ The saga continues. This time, the entire organization has folded back on itself, much like something that is frequently described in the tomes of the membership. This won’t end well, of course, but we must also ponder: What exactly is the point of a professional membership organization like the Romance Writers of America, anyway? Is it a trade union? If so, it’s a shambling corpse in the newpub landscape. Is it for author support? Clearly the constant harassment and infighting doesn’t serve that purpose. They cancelled their awards, so they are clearly…

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Feeding Molech for a Trophy

Very rarely does something appear truly devilish to me, but this one really seemed strange, even crazy. I’m curious if those who don’t share my faith get the same vibe, but for sure there is something… off about her voice. It sounds compelled, if that makes sense: Of course, there is more to this than that. First, she makes the trade obvious – she is successful because having an abortion allowed the opportunity to be so; she would not have the trophy had she not aborted her child. She says, “Thank God or whomever you pray to.” An image comes…

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