Renewed Blogging, Updated Sidebar

So as you might have noticed I took a somewhat extended hiatus in the past two months.

This was pre-arranged with Ron Unz, as was the reduction in the number of my slots on the front page from three to one. I had to take care of some very time-demanding business related issues. But this is all done now and I now have more free time than I’ve had in years, so consequent blogging should henceforth be very productive.

Now of course blogging is never just about time but also about motivation and productivity. And during my hiatus I’ve thought about those two issues a lot as well and have come up with some tentative solutions. I’ll share them on the off chance that they end up helping other bloggers and writers.

1. 

   MIRI/CFAR HQ

   Philosophical argument against procrastination. I visited a LessWrong/CFAR (Center for Applied Rationality) meetup a couple of months ago. Highly liberal, ~135 IQ people discussing arcane topics on probability distributions, maps and territories, etc. A bit too arcane for me, at any rate. That said, the one extremely useful thing I took away from it and which has since been positively influencing me in my everyday life is a certain simple but really quite profound way of looking at procrastination. When you are procrastinating, you are essentially trusting your future self to do the work that your present self does not want to. But if you make a habit of procrastination, of being unreliable, would it then be rational of your present self to depend on your (presumably equally fallible and unreliable) future self to do that what your present self is too lazy and slothful to do today? It’s grossly irrational and irresponsible! So you make the rational decision to stop procrastinating and finish up your tasks after all. The whole philosophical exercise acts as a sort of positive feedback loop that gradually chips away at habits of procrastination until you become very disciplined and reliable, at which point – rather ironically – it actually becomes rational of you to practice procrastination every now and then. It’s not bad to take a break like that, in fact I suspect it’s psychologically healthy in the longterm. And any sustained return to procrastination would be auto-corrected.

2. Establishing a “working reserve” of blog posts. One potential pitfall is that when you don’t write anything for a while, a sort of paralyzing apathy can frequently set in. You are thinking that you really need to publish something truly deep and amazing to “justify” the previous delay in new posts, but as the scope of any such “exculpatory” post gets ever more monumental with each passing day of continued inactivity, a spiral of sluggishness inevitably sets in. The obvious solution to this is to write a number of posts prepared in advance for those days when you are too busy or lazy to write anything new and keep them as part of a permanent reserve (much like how to cook effectively you need to have ingredients mise en place).
3. Improving access to sources of material and creative inspiration. It is an oft cited truism that writers need to read more anyone else so as to get material and inspiration for their own posts (articles, books, etc). This is just one consequence of society operating as a hive mind on the macro scale; cutting yourself off from it means impairing your own intelligence and creativity. But since there is a low signal-to-noise ratio on the Internet, there also has to be some pretty rigorous filtering in place to prevent one from engaging in aimless browsing (an easy habit to fall into). My latest idea in this eternal battle is to create a custom home page aggregating all the links I tend to find most useful on one page, so I am never tempted to browse at random from page to page. On the right is my implementation of this to give you an idea of what I’m talking about (click to enlarge). The HTML file can stored locally.
4. Continued commitment to the Evernote/Secret Weapon productivity system. Which is covered at length in this (admittedly dated) post. I will try to get it updated fairly soon.

Well, that’s pretty much it! Blogging frequency should pick up as I build up my “working reserve,” and hopefully I should be back to ~3 front page slots and regular posting by start of September. There’s a lot of interesting stuff in the works, including big posts exploring the idea of constructing an index of (comprehensive) national power for 2015, and a sneak preview into the core ideas of Apollo’s Ascent, the book that I’m writing that aims to unify psychometrics, world history, and economic growth/innovation theory.

Incidentally, I will also be giving a speech on the ideas of Apollo’s Ascent at a forthcoming conference on “The Future of Politics” on October 18th, 2015. Tickets can be bought here. This is part of a series of transhumanist conferences organized by Hank Pellissier in the Bay Area over the past few years. Apart from being a transhumanist and a Managing Director at IEET, Pellissier is also very much interested in psychometrics, having written the book Brighter Brains: 225 Ways to Elevate or Injure IQ which is a definitive aggregating of existing scientific knowledge on the subject. One of his current projects is, amongst other things, aimed at deworming children in Africa, which is probably one of the most cost-effective ways of fostering development in Africa and elevating average global IQs.

Finally, I have also taken the opportunity to update the Russian Reaction’s blogroll, as well as add a bunch of inspirational quotes. You can access it below.

While I don’t agree wholly or even mostly with many of the people on it, I do find them all to but at the very least interesting and noteworthy. At such, excluding the multi-group efforts that appear in the first category, it would be interesting to get some statistics about the list. Take what it says about me as you will.

1) There are 3 women out of a total of 68. That’s 4.4% women… pretty low, but nonetheless twice as much percentage-wise as in Charles Murray’s database of eminent figures in Human Accomplishment.

2) Ideologically:

• 29% Conservative – Note that I classify NRxers as such, though granted their definition of conservatism relative to society’s as a whole is… somewhat different.
• 28% Moderate – Note that a substantial part of society – SJWs, cuckservatives, etc. – defines anyone who takes HBD/IQ seriously as a raving far right loon, even though some who fit that description like Robert Lindsay are outright commies! so I will be using a more commonsense definition for people who just appear to be largely scientific/a-ideological).
• 12% Liberal – E.g. Jayman, or someone like Pinker who’s work I follow even though he doesn’t appear in a blogroll.
• 4% Left – E.g., Robert Lindsay.
• 12% Anti-Imperialist – Those people who tend to combine Left/Alt-Right elements e.g. The Saker who simultaneously supports People’s Republics and talks about Anglo-Zionists. The main enemy is globalism.
• 10% Right – As in hard right: Spencer, Greg Hood, Heartiste, etc.
• 4% X – Those people whose views are so radically idiosyncratic that they defy categorization, e.g. the Russian blogger and political gadfly Yarowrath who supports Putin, national socialism, pontificates about the coming era of transhuman “emergence,” worships the Chaos Gods, supports LGBT rights, and plays FPS video games while jacked up on LSD.

3) Thematically:

• 29% Politics – Which  also includes geopolitics, international relations, economics, etc.
• 4% History – Including cliodynamics and economic history.
• 15% HBD – Involves a couple better described as just non-ideological anthropologists.
• 6% Psychometrics – HBD and psychometrics do overlap a lot, but this category tends to more technical discussions of g with less of the social and political commentary you see in the former.
• 4% Game/Masculinity – I.e., Heartiste, Roosh, Forney.
• 7% Transhumanism – There are actually some fascinating convergences between H+ and psychometrics, HBD, and even NRx which is especially evident in the Bay Area. I suppose what unites all of them to some extent is the willingness both to think big and to think outside the box, fox-like.
• 6% NRx – Neoreaction, Dark Enlightenment, etc. Ties in a lot of these themes.
• 18% Russia – Self-explanatory.
• 10% Ukrainian Conflict – Self-explanatory.

The new blogroll:

Against the Mainstream

• Unz Review – Hosts about 20% of the people on this list
• Russia Insider – Uncovering Western propaganda against Russia
• Taki’s Mag – Entertaining columnists like the Derb, Jim Goad, and Taki himself
• Off Guardian – Exposing the Guardianista phenomenon
• JRL – David Johnson aggregates Russia news, takes care to present all sides

Top Thinkers (Mostly HBD/IQ)

• Steve Sailer – Our Lord, the King of the HBDsphere
• West Hunt – Cochran & Harpending’s 10,000 Year Explosion
• hbd* chick – The Hajnal Files, or: Why banging your cousins is bad
• Razib Khan – Population genetics plus history
• Emil Kirkegaard – Possibly the highest IQ IQ-blogger
• Craig Willy – EU affairs journalist skirting borders of respectability
• James Thompson – The most comprehensive IQ-blogger
• Pumpkin Person – Possibly the most entertaining IQ-blogger
• JayMan – Black-Asian American proving HBD with maps and stats+
• Robert Lindsay – HBD from a Hard Left perspective
• Steve Hsu – Adding 1,000s of S.D.’s to IQ via CRISPR
• Peter Turchin – Mathematizing history with cliodynamics
• Peter Frost – Heretical anthropologist, genetic pacification
• Pseudoerasmus – Economic historian who understands HBD
• Ron Unz – The person who ensures many on the list here don’t starve

 Top Russia Watchers

• Patrick Armstrong – Retired diplomat producing invaluable Russia Sitreps
• Alexander Mercouris (fb) – Very erudite columnist on Russian politics, IR, and Greece.
• Paul Robinson – Academic professional on Russian history and excellent blogger
• Danielle Ryan (RI) – An up and coming journalist on Russia
• Dmitry Trenin – The intellectual “intermediary” between official Moscow and D.C.
• Mark Chapman – Self proclaimed Kremlin Stooge; prominently kicks Russophobe ass
• Dmitry Gorenburg – Expert on the Russian military
• Sean Guillory – Academic skeptical of neocons, capitalism, and Putin
• András Tóth-Czifra – Presents the yuppie Bruseels liberal perspective on Russia with texts
• Mark Adomanis – Presents the yuppie Beltway liberal perspective on Russia with charts
• Jacques Sapir (fr) – French expert on the Russian economy
• Xin Zhang (cn) – Presents the Shanghai technocrat perspective on Russia in Chinese
• Maxim Kononenko (ru) – Programmer, graphomaniac columnist, moderate Putinist
• Sergey Zhuravlev (ru) – Russian economy expert
• Sputnik i Pogrom (ru) – Egor Prosvirnin et al., or: The closest thing Russia has to a US-style Alt Right
• Yarowrath (ru) – H+, 14/88, and Chaos Magic FTW!

Ukraine

• The Saker – Former military expert now specializing in geopolitics and the Donbass War
• Fort Russ – Invaluable translations from Russian and Ukrainian media
• Gleb Bazov – Perhaps the single best Twitter source to follow for coverage of Donbass War
• Graham W. Phillips – British video journalist working at ground zero
• Vladimir Suchan – Skeptical take on Russia’s “betrayal” of Novorossiyan resistance
• Colonel Cassad (ru) – Military expertise and comprehensive coverage with the best maps
• Anatoly Shary (ru) – Ukrainian journalist in exile from new democracy covering junta crimes

Top Intellectuals

• Peter Lee – China and geopolitics blogger
• Scholar’s Stage – Mormon historian, esp. re-China, steppe
• Fred Reed – On everything.
• Israel Shamir – Intelligently conspiratorial take on Russia, geopolitics
• John Derbyshire – Mathmo, immigrant doomsayer, race realist
• Staffan’s Personality Blog – HBD > just IQ
• Dienekes – Comprehensive anthro coverage
• Audacious Epigone – Validating stereotypes with Wordsum
• Gary Brecher – The War Nerd
• Chateau Heartiste – The Internet’s Shitlord Supreme
• Roosh V (RoK) – How to bang various countries
• Hank Pellissier – Key player in H+ and IQ circles in Bay Area
• Michael Anissimov – Synthesizing H+, NRx, 14/88, and Julie Borowski
• Mike Johnson – Rationalist developing pain/pleasure theory
• Scott Jackisch – Runs East Bay Futurists meetup group
• Slate Star Codex – Rationalist blogger from Less Wrong
• Mike Whitney – Anti-imperialism from the Left
• Lubos Motl – Czech theoretical physicist and anti-immigrationist
• Greg Hood – WN blogger, cuck meme popularizer
• Richard Spencer – The inventor of the Alt Right
• Kevin MacDonald – Questionable if thoughtprovoking musings on JQ
• Eamonn Fingleton – Economist of the slitty-eyed menace /s
• Josh Mitteldorf – How to achieve radical life extension
• spandrell – NRx with East Asian history focus
• Nick B. Steves – Core node in NRx
• Nick Land – Pretty much Moldbug’s successor
• Matt Forney (RoK) – Satirist, shitlord, video gamer
• Dmitry Orlov – Russian kollapsnik
• John Durant – Caveman Paleo in food and politics
• Olivier Berruyer (fr) – French geopolitician

Inspiring Quotes

He who does not love his mother more than other mothers and his country more than other countries, loves neither his mother nor his country. – Charles de Gaule (my view on nationalism)

When will Russia get an idea for which one can live for and create for? Galina Dmitrievna, – for our children, our grandchildren, for our Motherland, Russia, it always was, is, and will be worth living for and creating for. What else is there? However we might try to come up with a national idea, it has to be said directly: There is nothing closer to someone than his family, his close ones, and his own country. – Vladimir Putin (my view on ideology)

There is no left or right, only nationalists and globalists. – Marine Le Pen (my view on ideology)

After communists, most of all I hate anti-communists. – Sergei Dovlatov (both tend to be faggots)

Whoever speaks of Europe is wrong. Europe is a geographical expression. – Bismarck (my view on the “Is Russia Europe or Asia?” debates)

I am an atheist, but an Orthodox atheist! – Alexander Lukashenko (my view on religion)

He said to them, “But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. – Luke 22:36, NIV (they don’t teach this kind of Christianity nowadays)

Everyone who isn’t us is an enemy. – Cersei Lannister (clannishness defined in 7 words)

Personally, I’ve been hearing all my life about the Serious Philosophical Issues posed by life extension, and my attitude has always been that I’m willing to grapple with those issues for as many centuries as it takes. – Patrick Hayden (my view on life extension)

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age. – H.P. Lovecraft (my view on the ultimate fate of the human noosphere)