On Vox Day’s foray against the Alt-White, part 4

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Of all the conflicts in the debacle, the only outstanding battle is the most psychologically complex: the libel suit against Gab. I won’t pretend to know anything about the law involved (and neither should you), but I will say that I’d put twenty dollars up against one in favor of Vox. He has more resources, more lawyers, more IQ, more conscientiousness, and more high-functioning followers than Gab and Andrew Torba’s temporary Alt-White allies. But even if he wins a Pyrrhic victory, he will lose the war because there are only two possible outcomes. Either 1) Vox causes all and sundry to submit to his will, becoming de facto leader of the big-tent Alt-Right, or the Alt-White conducts a long-term, distributed guerrilla war of harassment and propaganda which erodes the high-trust, cohesive culture among Vox’s supporters and followers. That said, this post is mainly concerned with why he’s doing it, and whether any good will come of it.

As I see it, Vox’s motivations are equal parts opportunism, personal revenge, noblesse oblige, and Boomerposting. He is correct to assert that Gab was always going to face this challenge, and it’s better for Torba and company to face it now rather than later, coming from a sympathetic party. Exacting revenge on those insulting Spacebunny (his wife) was a good opportunity to do something I expect was already on his to-do list. In that sense, the legal effort is equivalent to full-contact sparring which will demonstrate the weakness of lolbertarian-fu. On the other hand, it’s pretty clear that Torba is not emotionally sophisticated enough to understand the lesson he’s receiving, and so it’s less “training” than whipping a dog. That’s how Boomerposting works, which I hereby define as: “Virtue-signalling one’s inability to understand the problems besetting kith and kin, followed by simplistic moralizing about willpower and a steadfast refusal to practice basic nepotism (e.g. leaving an inheritance).” It’s humorous that Xers and Boomers can be converted to identity politics and still not understand that it’s just nepotism writ large, but that’s the American Dream for you: supplying self-satisfied sleepwalkers since 1776.

Whether the lawfare effort becomes constructive or destructive depends, in large part, on whether the charity meme took. I’ll recall some recent examples and note tentative progress in that direction—Vox is a smart dude and if anyone can internalize what I laid down, it’s him, but he’d be fighting his nature. It’s possible the noblesse oblige motive will win out when pitted against the others, but not the most likely outcome. First, recall the three requirements for altruism,

1. Significant personal cost to the altruist
2. Correct diagnosis of the recipient’s real needs
3. Significant benefit to the recipient

These three elements rule out a lot of the things people attribute to altruism.

On altruism

It’s a small conceptual jump to charity, which is low-cost, high-benefit altruism.

As an example of his initial anti-charity stance, here’s a Boomerposting screed against NEETs who couldn’t man up and marry those sluts if they wanted to (fails criteria 1, 2, and 3). The commenters telling them to read the Bible and get jobs are particularly risible, given that their audience are pagans who identify as intellectual aristocrats and therefore disdain wagecucking as a waste of their time and precious bodily fluids. The follow-up Misesposting required a generous expenditure of time and stress but was ultimately futile, doomed by Vox’s failure to understand his audience (fails 2 and 3). On the other hand, castigating Snidely Whiplash actually benefited Snidely in significant ways (succeeds at all three). Snidely is a fifty-something old man who identifies as Ilk, and Vox diagnosed his negative ideation and shocked him out of it, presenting a simple moral choice where the correct choice was also the easier one. Snidely took the easy option and was immediately showered with praise and job offers from other Ilk, and all because Vox took the time and understood his audience. That’s how you do charity!

The last example gives me some hope for the future. Vox reposted an article which does an excellent job of empathizing with the Alt-White’s grievances, limitations, and fundamental inability to bootstrap their own lives. This is empathy without action (fails 1 and 3) but it indicates Vox finally understands who and what he’s dealing with. That means he has all of the pieces he needs to turn this thing around, and he just needs to decide to do it. In the meantime, we at Aeoli Pera will be Switzerland, because neutral isolationism is the way of the Nobilid.

Well, that series was a slog. But I’m glad to have started a multi-part blog post and then actually finish it! Luxuriantly gorilloid mindset and focus on content creation is how we’ll make neardersphere great again. Believe me. We already have the best people, I know, you know, we all know.