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From the The Guardian.
Introducing the Sad Puppies...
"The shortlists for the long-running American genre awards, won in the past by names from Kurt Vonnegut to Ursula K Le Guin and voted for by fans, were announced this weekend to uproar in the science fiction community, after it emerged that the line-up corresponded closely with the slates of titles backed by certain conservative writers. The self-styled "Sad Puppies" campaigners had set out to combat what orchestrator and writer Brad Torgersen had criticised as the Hugos' tendency to reward "literary" and "ideological" works.
Today's Hugos, Torgersen has blogged, "have lost cachet, because at the same time SF/F has exploded popularly – with larger-than-life, exciting, entertaining franchises and products – the voting body of 'fandom' have tended to go in the opposite direction: niche, academic, overtly to the Left in ideology and flavor, and ultimately lacking what might best be called visceral, gut-level, swashbuckling fun".
Twenty years ago, he writes, "if you saw a lovely spaceship on a book cover, with a gorgeous planet in the background, you could be pretty sure you were going to get a rousing space adventure featuring starships and distant, amazing worlds". Nowadays, he claims, the same jacket is likely to be a story "merely about racial prejudice and exploitation, with interplanetary or interstellar trappings".
And here we have the Rabid Puppies definitely not mentioning GamerGate:
Another group of allied rightwing campaigners, dubbing themselves the Rabid Puppies and led by Vox Day, real name Theodore Beale, have also added their voices to the block-voting campaign against what Day called "the left-wing control freaks who have subjected science fiction to ideological control for two decades and are now attempting to do the same thing in the game industry".
And finally a bit of Martin:
"Call it block voting. Call it ballot stuffing. Call it gaming the system. There's truth to all of those characterisations. You can't call it cheating, though. It was all within the rules. But many things can be legal, and still bad ... and this is one of those, from where I sit. I think the Sad Puppies have broken the Hugo awards, and I am not sure they can ever be repaired," he wrote.
"If the Sad Puppies wanted to start their own award ... for Best Conservative SF, or Best Space Opera, or Best Military SF, or Best Old-Fashioned SF the Way It Used to Be ... whatever it is they are actually looking for ... hey, I don't think anyone would have any objections to that. I certainly wouldn't. More power to them," he added. "But that's not what they are doing here, it seems to me. Instead they seem to want to take the Hugos and turn them into their own awards."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by fadrian on Monday April 13 2015, @01:10PM
Conservatives are almost always a minority in a stable, but still advancing society like ours. Technology and our economics have brought us to the point where we can choose our own views of reality - conservatives have Fox, liberals have (no one, but conservatives think liberals have the rest of the media space to themselves) MSNBC. Conservatives in the SF community want their own reality there, too. Why not, in this modern "get what you want" age? They've shown that they can make any organization they're part of a pain in the ass for non-conservatives. Why not give them the persecution complex they want, too, and kick them out? Alternatively, you could set up your own liberal award. Let the conservatives have the Hugo - it will be tarnished enough through their idiocy - you enjoy the SFWA awards. That way we each have our own realities again and everyone's happy. No?
That is all.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ikanreed on Monday April 13 2015, @01:19PM
Here's the thing. What the sad puppies are objecting to is sci-fi that involves any actual writing instead of replaying out the same power fantasies again and again. They don't want to have the awards celebrate sci-fi that achieves something in its genre. They want to be told they're right. Hell, that's almost everything broken about American politics in general right there: people using their franchise to elect people who assure them how right they are.
They look at Sturgeon's "90% of everything is crap" and go "AND WHY ARE YOU LIBERALS SO OBSESSED WITH THAT OTHER 10%." It's not like the sword and sorcery ever went away.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Vanderhoth on Monday April 13 2015, @02:23PM
This really doesn't seem to be what they're doing, IMHO.
To me it looks like Sad Puppies has a problem with people pushing identity politics down everyone's throat. I'm a liberal Canadian and agree with a lot of what they're saying, it seems it's only "conservative" when someone doesn't like how others are playing. Conservative has become a smear, like calling someone a "Social Justice Worrier" except on the opposite side of the fence. It seems that a lot of it has nothing to do with left vs. right politics and is a lot more authoritarian vs. libertarian politics.
One group wants complete control, only their approved content should be available and if they don't like it then it's sexist, racists, misogynistic, transphobic, etc. The other side wants a meritocracy where things exist under their own merit, even if it is sexist, racists, misogynistic, transphobic, etc.
An opinion to you is criticism to someone else, which is harassment and hate speech to others. Frankly, I'd rather live in a world where people can be bigoted and I can ignore them then live in a world where all art and entertainment is censored / controlled / adapted to the people that can be the MOST offended. Even when there's nothing to be offended about.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ikanreed on Monday April 13 2015, @03:30PM
Except that entire narrative is bullshit. If it weren't for the fact that this "PC police" thing were trapped in the imaginations of petty idiots with persecution complexes, and they are building ideological machinary to pat themselves on the back in an environment that's just supposed to celebrate achievement, it'd be a lot more passable.
But that is exactly what they're doing. And they're shitheads for it.
(Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Monday April 13 2015, @03:55PM
No more so than the people that were doing it before them, which is kind of the point. It was ok when one group was getting away with it more discretely, but now it's not because the "wrong" people are getting away with it... by playing by the same rules as everyone else. To me playing by the rules doesn't really make them shitheads, it makes their claim that it was already being done more plausible.
The results of which are now the people that were running the show before want new rules to make sure the "wrong" type of authors can't receive nominations in the future (by having nomination committees rather than public voting) and are buying memberships for people to vote "no award" for people nominated this year.
So yeah, sad puppies made their point and hopefully it can ALL stop next year, but I doubt it will. Genie's out of the bottle.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 2, Insightful) by ikanreed on Monday April 13 2015, @04:02PM
Again, that narrative is bullshit. The end.
(Score: 4, Touché) by GeminiDomino on Monday April 13 2015, @08:39PM
Well, I'm convinced!
"We've been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of our culture"
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday April 13 2015, @10:18PM
Well, I'm convinced!
Me, too! Very convincing.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday April 14 2015, @03:19AM
I explained why, and they repeated the bullshit part. This wasn't a complicated rebuttal because I don't often feel inclined to repeat myself.
(Score: 2) by GeminiDomino on Tuesday April 14 2015, @03:42AM
Actually, you simply dismissed and insulted. You didn't "explain" anything, either time.
"We've been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of our culture"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 14 2015, @05:45AM
Listen and believe!
(Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Tuesday April 14 2015, @04:24PM
is a lie
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @08:42PM
There you are being a toxic bigot again.
It is not a narrative, save for the books of course. Using profanity is not appropriate to any discussion amongst adults. Calling opinions facts does not make it true. Ad hominem is a schoolyard bully tactic that is not welcome.
ikanreed just continues to pile on hatespeech while calling it progress. I personally don't mind it so much, but that other people are modding vile hatred with no redeeming features up is a disgusting sight.
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Wednesday April 15 2015, @09:21AM
Don't take it to heart, it's rather obvious by now that the tactic changed from mostly downvoting others to mostly upvoting themselves and the site should eventually figure out a solution against that if they haven't already (I would think they have since it's the same kind of pattern although it might not be implemented in time for the next update, leaving open the possibility that it might be a little bit trickier just in case it is).
Just how bored those moderation abuser must be, how uncreative, and/or inept, is rather sad, and they're likely old as well (kids are seldom that “dead”/wilted).
Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @10:12PM
Conservative has become a smear, like calling someone a "Social Justice Worrier" except on the opposite side of the fence.
"Conserative" is not derogatory, it just describes someone of low intelligence with poor imagination and (evidently) inadequate writing skills. The opposite of Social Justice Warrior is actually "Anti-social Injustice Whiner". See? It fits.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 14 2015, @05:43AM
Apparently, a great example of this "actual writing" within the Science Fiction / Fantasy genre includes If You Were A Dinosaur, My Love [archive.today].
(Score: 1) by Oakenshield on Monday April 13 2015, @03:11PM
Citation? Gallup seems to think conservatives outnumber liberals, with both being minorities technically when counted in total...
http://www.gallup.com/poll/180452/liberals-record-trail-conservatives.aspx [gallup.com]
(Score: 2) by compro01 on Monday April 13 2015, @05:41PM
Depends on whether you look at whether people call themselves "conservatives" or "liberals" or whether you look at whether people believe in "liberal ideas" or "conservative ideas".
For example, last election in the US, ballot initiatives for typically liberal policies like minimum wage hikes or marijuana legalization passed, and conservative policies like fetal personhood failed, while at the same time Republicans were getting elected in the same places.
(Score: 1) by dboz87 on Wednesday April 22 2015, @04:27PM
Care to refer me to a ballot initiative that was uniform across the entire country that shows exactly where people believe in "liberal ideas" vs "conservative ideas"?