Monday, May 9, 2016

Reduxing Vox Day: Capitulate and Contain

You guys do realize that I'm a Sad Puppy and that this is a war game, right? You have seen that I've said this multiple times, right? Looks like Kickers aren't the only ones with reading comprehension and pattern recognition problems.

Today, we're going to outline a strategy that no one will like and will never be implemented. You may still find it useful as an exercise in applied 4GW.

The Capitulate and Contain strategy is based off of two ideas:

1). As long as the Puppies are focused on the Hugos, the Puppies are focused on the Hugos

Other awards/conventions have an ever-narrowing window of opportunity to enact anti-Puppy policies (ie, policies to prevent Puppy-like shenanigans) before the Hugos fall and the Rabids turn their eyes elsewhere.

It's tempting to move all available resources to counter the Puppy attack on the Hugos, but so far, this has done nothing. It's time to start putting out feelers to other Conventions/Awards and setting up a fallback position. The only thing worse than losing the Hugos would be losing the next award/convention.

2). 4GW entities do best when they never have to play defense
Part of the problem with fighting a 4GW opponent is that non-state actors (terrorists, guerrillas) have no territory to defend - at least, nothing on the scale of an enemy nation. Bombing a terrorist training camp does little to destroy their will to fight or ability to carry out operations (compared to bombing factories or refineries in a conventional war). A 4GW entity can be everywhere and nowhere, making them almost impossible to exterminate.

But what if we give the enemy territory? Per Lind, 4GW entities have so far worked best when they hollow out a traditional State and wear it like a skin ("would you govern me? I'd govern me). Allowing the Puppies to take over the Hugos and forcing them to defend territory could counter-intuitively sap their strength.

Here's a rough sketch:

1). Maintain token resistance while infiltrating other Cons/Awards.
2). Document 'scary' statements/actions by Pups to frighten other Cons/Awards into compliance.
3). If and when the Rabids take over, destroy as much of the Hugo's/WorldCon's infrastructure as possible (Scorched Earth).
4). Get all known Puppies/WorldCon 2017 attendees blacklisted from as much of fandom as possible (Capitulate and Contain).

The end game is to 'out' as many Puppies as possible and to prevent them from getting footholds in other Awards/Cons. "Go back to the Hugos."

Sure, losing the Hugos would sting, but it's looking increasingly like that's going to happen anyway. Better to get something out of failure than to simply fail. And the Puppening is about more than the Hugos.

Here's why it will never happen:

1). The PTB at the Hugos will self-immolate before considering the possibility of defeat/voluntarily losing their status as the PTB at the Hugos.
2). As noted by myself and a few commentators here, the Kickers lack the necessary discipline to pull something like this off. 
3). I don't know the PTB at other Awards/Cons, but I assume they have a similar lack of self-awareness/discipline.

In our series of mental exercises, this one is the most theoretical. It will never happen with the current players - but then, that's the fun of war games, isn't it? "How would you stop the Rabids" is a more productive question than "what will those rascals do next?"

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