In yet another parallel to Malstrom, Icycalm has decided to shut down his public forum. Who could have imagined that my blog would get this kind of reaction from Icycalm — much less in so short a time frame? Well, somebody did see this coming: ME. That’s right, I saw this coming. And I prepared for it. Alex had good reason to require registrants to purchase their posting privileges (after his forum was swamped with spam several times), but locking read-only access behind his new paywall was a response to this very blog.
Moreover the forum will henceforth be viewable only by registered users, in order to get rid of the countless idiotic lurkers who only come here to find stuff to uncomprehendingly snicker about with their equally idiotic friends in their idiotic forums.
He intends to make compiling my articles more difficult. Too bad that every article I plan to write about Icycalm already exists in outline form, complete with forum quotes. And I completed this task a full month before posting my opening introduction! Even this post was planned that far in advance. I’ve known for a long time that Alex would eventually retreat from running his forum openly, in order to “escape the conversation.”
(All Insomnia forum links will be broken from here on out)
How do you explain to people like him, for example, that “the conversation” is mere chatter that is forgotten almost as soon as it is written. To be outside the conversation is a privilege! In Schopenhauer’s and Nietzsche’s, and even in Baudrillard’s time, there were plenty of conversations going on as well. And yet what do we have left of them today? — Only Schopenhauer and Nietzsche and Baudrillard, of course!
But which part of sending open letters to John Romero and Jason Rohrer was being “outside the conversation”? Or compiling enormous lists of every page on the internet that linked to him, responding to each with pithy one-liners? It was only a matter of time before Alex took his ball and went home. But the thing to push him over the edge was something he’d never encountered before:
Note that all of these negative points against me come from people who have written thousands and thousands of one or two-liners on the internet, all of which say nothing the least bit interesting or significant. So far no one has actually attempted to write a lengthy and detailed analysis, taking apart something I have written. All the criticism I have so far got is essentially of the order of jeering and cat-calling.
He didn’t even wait for my second analysis article! It makes me doubt that he really would “love nothing more than to see someone come along and tear his theories apart“. That would require being a part of the conversation — a conversation for which Icycalm is simply not ready. His fiery temperament makes it completely impossible. He’s as icy calm as he is Batman.
As for my username — people mention this all the time. It’s not that I AM icy calm — it’s that I would perhaps like to become that one day. Like, if my username was “Batman” no one would suppose that I was indeed Batman, etc.
And perhaps someday he will be ready for the conversation. Until then —
Those who cannot understand how to put their thoughts on ice should not enter into the heat of debate.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
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Are you going to buy access to the forum?
By: Breadcultist on March 9, 2011
at 7:21 pm
I’d advise against sharing credit card details with Icy, given his track record with taking people’s money. I wouldn’t put a few social-engineered Pay Pal phishing tricks past him. How else is he going to fund his next half-decade of surfing and gaming in paradise? Slave labor book writing?
That said, what good would it do me to answer your question? If I were planning on purchasing an account — if I had indeed already purchased one — telling you about it would prompt Alex to hunt down the account and terminate it. Even using insider information from the forum in an article would trigger the same scenario. Only by following my planned outlines as if nothing had happened would I be able to keep the account from getting banned. So even if I were to tell you “nope, not getting an account”, there would be no way for you to be sure I was telling the truth.
By: sethhearthstone on March 10, 2011
at 2:01 am
Batman would be proud of you.
By: rt55j on March 10, 2011
at 5:42 am
See that’s what I don’t get. When people are so eager to give an opinion, but they can’t take one!
By: EyesWideOpen on March 10, 2011
at 5:10 pm
What opinions has he been unable to take? Hilarious: never mind that he responds to every criticism levied at him, even Seth’s previous blog entries, but when he decides that he doesn’t have time for that and just wants to get on with his work you resort to the stock response that he “can’t take it”, or whatever.
Sorry, but I have to point out bullshit when I see it.
re: the conversation. The way I see it, he isn’t trying to say he simply doesn’t want to communicate with people, he just doesn’t want to be reliant on any network, of “professionals” ect, in order to say anything. He knows that if he is allowed to speak when and how he wants then he is more likely to say something worthwhile. And he knows that if he says something worthwhile then people are going to take notice, which ciy has neatly demonstrated with his small website that is actively driving people away.
He explains it better here (taken from Google Cache, lol):
“One must try to understand exactly what I mean by “privilege” — it is by no means a manner of speaking: I mean it literally. The fact that I am entirely financially independent, that I do not have to answer to anyone for anything, that no one controls in the slightest what I write or don’t write, WHEN I write or don’t write — that I can take as much time as I want to think and to study, even an entire year if I want to, or more — without writing anything at all — whereas all these miserable little pseudo-scholars are forced to scribble a certain number of publications every year, regardless of whether they actually have anything to say — forced also to read EVERYONE ELSE’S wretched scribblings, so as not to fall behind in “the conversation” — forced to give lectures, to attend these insufferable conferences in which nothing worthwhile takes place, to hobnob with all these idiots, all these slimy little scumbags who spend their entire lives “networking” and maneuvering for position — freedom from all this, that is what I call a privilege, without which any genuine accomplishment in philosophy is quite simply impossible.
Look up the lives of all the greatest philosophers. They all enjoyed the same privilege.
A privilege, by the way, which I had to fight for. — And this, too, was part of my apprenticeship in philosophy.”
In the end, if it is going to allow him to work faster and we can read his book sooner, I can’t really fault his hiding away.
By: Never on March 10, 2011
at 8:44 pm
And I honestly thought icycalm couldn’t get any more arrogant. Charging for access to a dead forum? That seems like an ego gone completely out of control.
By: CM30 on March 11, 2011
at 2:30 am
Icy Calm may be a crank, but he has made a few good points. After reading the Stupidest Word in Videogames, I have expunged the word ‘gameplay’ from my vocabulary. He has also written a very clear piece on why professional gaming publications almost always suck, and he showed why a game’s price should not impact its score; I think even Malstrom would like that article since it posits that ‘value for time’ is more important than ‘value for money.’
By: Elzair on March 11, 2011
at 4:27 pm
Some critics even like to rate by “time for money”!
By: Never on March 12, 2011
at 12:51 pm
Except many of those articles have content which can be found elsewhere, and likely better written. I remember reading quite a few interesting articles on how review scores/gaming publications are biased due to funding by video game companies on a blog he actually linked to on the forums. As for price and score… are you seriously suggesting that Wii Sports being free didn’t benefit it in any way?
But I’ll admit, icycalm can say some good points, it’s just he’s too arrogant for his own good, and the kind of person I avoid almost on principle.
By: CM30 on March 12, 2011
at 2:27 am
In what possible way does Wii Sports being free make it a better game or Ketsui being hundreds of dollars make it a worse game?
And whenever someone claims seriously to do something “on principle” it makes me think they’re just a little bit stupid.
By: Never on March 12, 2011
at 1:22 pm
It doesn’t. But I’m sure less people would say, buy Wii Sports if it wasn’t bundled, like in Japan. People are a lot more willing to try things if there’s no cost involved.
As for the principle comment… I believe more people should stick to some kind of ethical principles in life, or just at least not stand and let horrendous behaviour go unpunished because it ‘doesn’t affect them’.
But what’s even the point in arguing about all of this?
By: CM30 on March 12, 2011
at 8:20 pm