So apparently I just had a debate with Vox Day?
A couple of days ago, you see, a Twitterer calling himself RedPillPhil suggested I was a bit of a coward for taking on an “easy target” like A Voice for Men rather than taking on the leading intellectual lights of the so-called “Dark Enlightenment” like … Heartiste, and Vox Day … who I actually write about all the time.
My laughter must have carried all the way to, well, wherever Vox Day lives, because Mr. Day soon appeared on Twitter and challenged me to a debate — on women’s right to vote. The very notion of two dudes earnestly debating female suffrage – in 2014, no less – struck me as beyond absurd, so I sent back what I thought was an appropriately dismissive Tweet:
@voxday @RedPillPhil @heartiste Yes, women should have voting rights, because they, like men, are human. I win the debate! The end.Thanks!
— David Futrelle (@DavidFutrelle) July 25, 2014
Apparently Mr. Day saw this tweet as my opening gambit in a debate that was now on, and replied with an attempted gotcha. Against my better judgment, I replied:
@voxday @RedPillPhil @heartiste No. I vote where I live, in the US.. So are you contending that no women live in the countries they vote in?
— David Futrelle (@DavidFutrelle) July 25, 2014
He replied, and I sunk deeper into the quicksand of this ridiculous “debate.”
@voxday @RedPillPhil @heartiste There are a few basic requirements for having the right to vote besides being human but being male isn't one
— David Futrelle (@DavidFutrelle) July 26, 2014
At this point I realized I needed to shut this thing down as quickly as possible. So I posted a couple of quick tweets:
And then, quite literally, I went and took a nap.
Later I discovered that Mr. Day’s possibly imaginary wife, known only as Space Bunny, had weighed in with her own attempted “gotcha.”
I thought that was that. So imagine my surprise to see that Mr. Day had retreated to his blog Alpha Game to boast about his great success in “exposing a Gamma.” That gamma being me.
In his typically pompous prose, Mr. Day explained that his Twitter encounter with me
should help illustrate why the critics of Game are so hesitant to directly challenge any of the leading Game bloggers; despite their pretensions they know very well that they are overmatched.
Oh, plus I’m a fat loser who can’t get laid:
Critics such as Futrelle and Scalzi are of low socio-sexual rank, which means that they have the usual gamma male’s distaste for conflict that has a clear winner. The reason is that as long as they can avoid losing, they can still claim victory in their delusional gamma style.
“Delusional Gamma Style” was Psy’s little known followup to Gangnam Style.
Notice how Futrelle tries to immediately declare himself the winner. This is normal. It’s all about the spin with gammas; substance is to be avoided to the greatest extent possible because the more of it there is, the harder it becomes to spin the selected narrative. They are undefeated in their own minds, victors in a long series of imaginary encounters.
At this point Mr. Day – apparently oblivious to irony– declares himself the winner:
But even in a short, character-limited exchange such as this, I was able to show Futrelle’s reasoning to be incorrect twice, so it is little wonder he does not dare risk a more in-depth encounter with me or one of the other men. The longer it went on, the more inconsistencies I would have been able to expose. Once he realized this, he promptly repeated his initial position and retreated.
Yeah, I’m sure you would have done a bang-up job showing me that since it’s ok to restrict people to voting only in the places in which they actually live, it is also ok to deny votes to women.
This is why we are winning. This is why we will win. Our critics and our enemies have to run away from us every single time we enter a new arena. All we have to do to continue convincing men of the truth of our perspective is to avoid getting lazy, to keep developing and presenting refined ideas, and to remember that rhetoric is no substitute for dialectic. And every time there is a minor encounter of this sort, more people will see that there is no rational foundation for the feminized dogma our opponents are so ineptly defending.
You just keep telling yourself that.
EDITED TO ADD: Just noticed this amazing comment on Vox’s site, from someone called Doom. (What’s with misogynists and their supervillain names?)
Actually, when women see these debates, they choose the strong side. I don’t think they always understand, or agree, but they instinctively know strong from weak, and generally choose strong. But then fall back into confusion without a steady stream of strength, which most men haven’t been presenting them. Game is changing that, from what I am seeing. There is as much hope as there is time. Then again, as things are setting up, a break will be for the good.
Game isn’t just a sexual struggle, it opens up much else in life. Men who begin to master game aren’t willing to be helpless in other parts of their lives. That bites into the need, and want, of bigger government. Zoom!
Ladies love mansplaining assholes! Soon the governments of the world will crumble before us!
—
My husband accidentally startled a skunk a few evenings ago. He moved at top speed away from the skunk to avoid getting sprayed with stink. People avoid debating VD for the same reason.
@Matt Borgard: Are you new here? Have a Welcome Package!
@ The Mellow Monkey
Also, not that it should matter, but if for some reason we must talk about “socio-sexual rank”, well, I’ve seen photos of Roissy, and lol.
Actually, what he meant is that children don’t get the vote because they pupate into adult males, so they get the vote post-pupation.
Women (also a larval state) pupate into Bene Gesserit which also explains how women run the entire world with their psychic powers.
“I’ve seen photos of Roissy, and lol.” I always thought that he was some kind of internet construct, a character created by a team of like 12 idiots.
To steal a line from C S Lewis:
“Once there was a boy called Theodore Beale, and he almost deserved it.”
Unfortunately it only seems to take one idiot to create Roissy the persona, but it does take hundreds of sad, angry little manchildren to give him internet power.
That is the think about trolls I guess. They don’t realize they are trolls so they think you are taking them seriously.
Thing! not think. Criminy!
We keep assuming that they think, but unfortunately that thing that we’re giving them, what do you call it? Oh, yeah, benefit of the doubt. In this case it’s often undeserved.
Mellow Monkey, hi! Good to see you here. I lurk on Pharyngula. Those comments you put up with the facts about early pregnancy were terrific, thank you.
Those dudes could do with some retrophrenology. /Pratchett reference
Sir Bodsworth, LOL! Makes me wonder if he’s Theodore Eustace Clarence Beale.
“He replied, and I sunk deeper into the quicksand of this ridiculous “debate.””
…it’s a slippery slope.
Well he certainly does put words together that are spelled correctly. Too bad there’s no logic or coherent meaning behind any of them.
Is that what makes VD one of the leading intellectuals of the “Dark Enlightenment?”
All the words are correct. It is the sentences that are collywobbled.
Poll: which of the following would people least like to get into a debate with?
* A MRA/MGTOW/PUA/Nice Guy.
* A creationist.
* A conspiracy theorist.
* A white nationalist.
* A Randroid/Austrian schooler.
* A gun nut.
* A global warming denialist.
* An anti-vaxxer.
* A sovereign citizen.
* A survivalist/doomsday prepper.
* Other. Specify.
I recognize, of course, that it’s possible to more than one of the above at once, and indeed, that there is a good number of people out there who are ALL OF THE ABOVE AT ONCE.
Anyone who’s been here for a while already “debated” someone who was all of the above except I think anti-vaxx, or maybe that just never came up. Search “NWO Slave”, when you spot the icon that looks like a sub from femdom porn you’ve found him.
The ones I least like to debate with are the intactivist crowd, because even though I agree that routine male infant circumcision is wrong, I apparently never think it’s quite WRONG ENOUGH. I really go down the rabbit hole with those folks.
cassandrakitty,
He actually was, in fact, and anti-vaxxer. He also seemed not to understand the difference between vaccines and fluoride/”flouride”, but I’ve checked out his reddit history, and he is definitely anti-vaccine.
So he really was the perfect troll. Is he real or did the internet spontaneously bring him into being? We will never know.
That… I could see that being a plot point in a cyberpunk/urban fantasy novel. The uber-troll, spawned from the depths on depravity on the internet.
The question: would this troll be a cat lover (like most of the internet) or a cat hater (as part of the misogynist package)?
Okay, I’m currently editing a fantasy novel where the internet exists, but it doesn’t fit the plot or worldbuilding, though one of the characters could probably name a few local NWOSlaves if you wanted entertainment.
@steampunked:
Goodnight to the Bene Gesserit witch whispering “they tried and died”
That’s like saying people who walk around a pile of dog poop are refusing to engage with it out of cowardice. People generally consider it to be a complete waste of time, if not completely beneath them, to debate the equivalent of Monty Python’s Black Knight.
VD seems awfully anxious to declare himself the “winner” in this trivial online exchange. It’s almost as if he’s an insecure delusional gamma male.
Theodore Beale awoke from fitful dreams to discover that he had been transformed into a tiny human being.
kittehserf! I’m so glad they were appreciated. Yes, I’ve seen when you’ve popped up over there before. I always enjoy your comments, both there and here.