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."
Related Stories
So, last night the SJW types over at the Hugo awards decided they'd rather burn the whole thing to the ground than give out an award based on what the readers like instead of social justice reasons:
The members of the World Science Fiction Society rejected the slate of finalists in five categories, giving No Award in Best Novella, Short Story, Related Work, Editor Short Form, and Editor Long Form. This equals the total number of times that WSFS members have presented No Award in the entire history of the Hugo Awards, most recently in 1977.
Here are a few of the people on the #SadPuppies slate that should be quite surprised to learn that they were denied a chance at an award for being white males when they wake up this morning: Rajnar Vajra, Larry Correia, Annie Bellet, Kary English, Toni Weisskopf, Ann Sowards, Megan Gray, Sheila Gilbert, Jennifer Brozek, Cedar Sanderson, and Amanda Green.
takyon: Here are in-depth explanations of the Hugo Awards controversy.
Previously: "Rightwing lobby has 'broken' Hugo awards" Says George R.R. Martin (240 comments)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @11:37AM
> Instead they seem to want to take the Hugos and turn them into their own awards.
What Martin doesn't understand is that the Hugos were always 'their' awards. It's only now that they are starting to lose control of the awards that the knives come out and the ugliness of unearned privilege is revealed.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by naubol on Monday April 13 2015, @04:04PM
You're saying that a system being gamed by a minority group is equivalent to saying that it is 'their' (the minority with views the majority finds extreme) award? What privilege are you speaking of and why is it unearned? Are you basically saying that the people who worked hard to establish this community haven't earned the right to have that community and to issue awards within that community based on that community's choice? Isn't this site about community privilege?
Much more depressing, why are you being upmodded when your post has the equivalent content of a powerpoint presentation by a vendor of a vaporware product. Clearly, it also smells of characterized rhetoric.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @04:19PM
I'm saying that the awards have changed over the years because society has changed and that the people who used to be on top are now a minority and are having a very difficult time adjusting to that fact.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Monday April 13 2015, @04:48PM
Just one more symptom of our completely polarized, broken and non-functioning society and culture. Is it surprising that this break out in the Hugo fan awards? No. It is the fabric of the world. Do you want to see decadence? Lo! Behold!
It is not in the politics or sexual practices of the people - it is in the complete lack of context and willingness to approach dispute or difference with anything but discord and absolute chauvinism.
This is a dead society, tearing itself to pieces as the lies on which it was built are forced into denial or break-open, chaotically.
"Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud ... hatch out."
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/I%2C_Claudius_(TV_series) [wikiquote.org]
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Vanderhoth on Monday April 13 2015, @05:01PM
I'm still trying to figure out how a minority secured a majority of the votes in the nominations. You'd think for them to get a majority that a majority of voters would have to agree with them... Which kind of means they aren't the minority at all. It's almost as if the people complaining about the minority out voting them were the actual minority and were just really sore losers because they couldn't game the system as well as the other "minority".
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 5, Insightful) by jmorris on Monday April 13 2015, @05:29PM
I'm still trying to figure out how a minority secured a majority of the votes in the nominations.
But some people are unpeople. The actual paying customers in this example. Only the 'right' people should be voting you see. The self appointed vanguard who see it as their job to lead the rabble to what they should be reading instead of the lowbrow crap they actually do read. They believe that the Hugos should be prescriptive instead of descriptive. If you sell a lot of books there is no reason to heap honors upon you, the vulgar forces of the market are your reward; no, major award are to be given to promote rightthinking works that nobody has read so that the past glory of the award (remembered from when it did indeed honor excellence) can move books. I.e. to redistribute honor, attention as well as mere revenue.
My opinion is the process was taken over by a bunch of sanctimonious hippies more too in love with the smell of their own farts. Typical entryism, they completely remade the Hugo into something entirely different from what it was and are now screeching like harpies when the fans got tired of it and told em to sod off. Of course at this point it will more likely just kill off the award instead of save it because they waited a generation too long. Liberty requires constant vigilance, they weren't.
Just to really flame the fires higher, Martin's attitude above is entirely representative of the attitude, People move in, take over an existing institution because it is easier than establishing a new one from scratch and thenn when the original population objects they arrogantly just tell them to go make their own if they aren't happy. Kinda like RedHat and Pottering are doing with GNU/Linux.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by naubol on Monday April 13 2015, @05:48PM
Considering it only costs $40 dollars to participate and anyone who is interested can, I fail to see how this class argument applies. Your opinion is so toxic and polemic that I am struggling to find the best argument buried in your post, but lets go with the idea that you believ e it has been captured by a group with narrowly tailored interests (the hippies). Mind you, it is hilarious that you are calling them hippies, what a sound, reasonable, and credible person you are!
That group, the 'hippies', spectacularly failed to keep the system captured because their (ironic)narrowly-tailored interests(/ironic) failed to converge on a small enough pool of candidates to beat a much more organized minority, the puppies, who swept all nominations in every category by specifying exactly 5 people to nominate in each category.
The puppies, who absolutely have a narrowly-tailored interest, managed to capture the system perfectly. There is no proof that the group of participators at large are kept purposefully to some oligarchic set by 'the hippies'. So, this charge is, ironically, true of the puppies who are leveling it unfairly at the majority. The irony is made more palpable because if the puppies were correct in this charge, they wouldn't have been able to hijack the nomination process, which made the charge true of them!
Your band wagon argument that 'the hippies' are screeching against the will of the population seems to fold like so much poppycock when you consider that the puppies ballot-stuffed a small selection of authors approved only by them, a minority in size relative to the general fan population. In other words, it wasn't the fans in general voting, but an extremist group. Vulnerabilities in the nomination process have underlined how susceptible the process is to minority capture.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Vanderhoth on Monday April 13 2015, @06:07PM
Are you serious? Is this a parody account? am I still on twitter and just haven't realized it?
I'd like to know at what point in the last five to ten years opinions became "toxic" and "polemic" because I honestly don't remember this type of language being the norm up to about a year ago.
I'm living in topsy tervy world. Had I read that a year ago I would have dismissed it as a conservative claiming freeze peach should only apply to them and libtards need to STFU, except now I'm reading it from "progressives" that are trying their damnedest to shut down all discussion they don't agree with. Why don't you just tell us we're a rapists and get it over with, might as well not mince words, just go for the nuclear option.
And seriously don't think people here don't realize you're also one of maybe three different AC accounts running through this comment section mocking everyone that doesn't think sad puppies is the largest toxic environmental disaster to occur in the history of SF.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @10:38PM
I strongly recommend you read Martin's posts in full (he wrote a series of about 8 blog posts on the issue), particularly the one titled "Hatespeech [livejournal.com]" and his (very civil) reply to Larry Correia [livejournal.com]. Martin explicitly distances himself from the "SJW" crowd while explaining why that type of discourse is unhelpful, including references to it being used by people with "social justice" politics, not just conservatives.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Reziac on Tuesday April 14 2015, @02:04AM
In fairness, one should also read Correia's response to Martin:
http://monsterhunternation.com/2015/04/09/a-response-to-george-r-r-martin-from-the-author-who-started-sad-puppies/ [monsterhunternation.com]
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by khallow on Tuesday April 14 2015, @08:10AM
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday April 14 2015, @01:12AM
Your opinion is so toxic and polemic that I am struggling to find the best argument buried in your post
You'll need a much better liver, if you plan on reading the internet. The previous poster's comment was quite innocuous.
Your band wagon argument that 'the hippies' are screeching against the will of the population seems to fold like so much poppycock when you consider that the puppies ballot-stuffed a small selection of authors approved only by them, a minority in size relative to the general fan population.
Given how easy it was to do, I count that as evidence supporting the claim that ballot stacking has happened before.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday April 14 2015, @02:06AM
Larry Correia, who was an auditor/accountant in his first life, has twice said he believes the Hugo's internal vote-counting process is NOT tainted. Which of course says nothing of whether any group has previously gamed the awards (certainly some have done serious campaigning, notably Scalzi).
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday April 14 2015, @07:48AM
Larry Correia, who was an auditor/accountant in his first life, has twice said he believes the Hugo's internal vote-counting process is NOT tainted.
An observation which is completely irrelevant. I'm sure, if you put him to the question, he'd have to admit that probably not a lot of babies were eaten in the process of voting for a Hugo either.
Tainting the internal vote-counting process is a rather extreme and possibly illegal (due to the potential for being considered fraud) way to game the system. Why speak of that instead of speaking about the obvious, demonstrated example of getting a bunch of your friends on board and voting as a bloc? Sad Puppies showed that latter approach is quite effective and easy to implement. That implies that they might not be the first to do so, just the first to publicly demonstrate that it can be done.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday April 14 2015, @03:04PM
Well, he said this because he was accused of believing that the Hugo administrators had screwed with the previous votes, and he was pointing out that wasn't what he'd said at all; rather, as you say, that previously various people had done exactly what he did, they just weren't so public about it.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by naubol on Tuesday April 14 2015, @04:08PM
I'm calling for better rhetoric, not complaining that I can't handle it. I'm not fatalistic about internet debate.
It would be easy for me to kill someone else -> I have killed someone else? Means is not sufficient to convict in court. This is a false implication.
Moreover, GRRM and others agree that campaigning for Hugo's has occurred, but drew the distinction that this is an order of magnitude difference. While campaigning might negatively tarnish the reputation of the award on some varying degree, as it has for the Oscars, going from partial influence to full dominance drops the awards value to essentially nil outside of the sub-community who is dominating.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Vanderhoth on Monday April 13 2015, @05:55PM
Yes, LOL, totally get where you're coming from.
It's not like I haven't repeatedly seen this attitude over the last eight months.
https://archive.today/kHfrS [archive.today]
I've only been a gamer since, BEFORE, I could copy them out of computer magz on to my Atari 130XE, but yeah I should totally just give up gaming and while I'm at it all the other nerdy hobbies like comics and SF and maybe programming too, so a bunch of nobodies that get triggered by a limerick, mocking a man who runs off a cliff for sleeping with another man by accident, as transphobic can take over and make things "more diverse" while tweeting #KillAllMen
Read more at http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2015/04/pillars-of-eternity-limerick-was-changed-by-backer-not-obsidian/#zjdrsAvqfSYoVgeT.99 [blogjob.com]
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @09:35PM
Is Soylentnews based on the same principle slashdot bad, make new and better voila! Soylentnews
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Monday April 13 2015, @10:57PM
Pretty much. Slashdot was once good, went bad, corporate overlord made correction impossible so a fork happened. But it was the same principle, those who didn't like the changes in an existing institution were the ones forced to rebuild from scratch.
These problems will persist until communities evolve methods to more effectively resist entryism and single points of control/failure. The Hugos are fighting entryism, the Slashdot and GNU/Linux communities are fighting the single point of control where Dice/RedHat ended up in a position to redefine the community.
(Score: 5, Informative) by naubol on Monday April 13 2015, @05:33PM
I suppose you're also confused about how certain minorities also dominate US politics. Thanks for providing a real life demonstration of how angry internetters shave off nuance by not understanding what is actually happening, assuming you know what is going on without doing any research, and using overly simplistic characterized arguments. For god's sake, you even used bold!
I'm not sure you're willing to engage with nuance, and I'm sorry I refuse to use bold, but here are some properties...
The system starts by voting on nominees. Since only the top 5 take all, votes can be diluted by multiple people in the majority voting among a pool of hundreds. The minority was able to take control of this process by publishing a list of five so that all five were nominated, shutting out any majority selections due to insufficient agglutination.
Also, the majority, historically, has been less interested in voting for nominees than in voting in the final round, thus requiring less effort to steal the election via ballot stuffing on the minority's part.
To vote, you pay $40, which was ostensibly to be apart of the associated convention, Worldcon. Now, imagine that we asked all voters in a general election to pay to vote, you'd likely drain off a lot of people interested in voting who either didn't have the money or simply weren't riled up enough. This may be a positive idea to you, but to me it is anathema to reasonable politics.
History is also rife with examples of minorities gaming systems for a variety of reasons. Your bold ignorance of this possibility is a little alarming.
If you do reply, please consider employing facts, reason, dispassion, and normal fonts.
(Score: 3, Disagree) by Vanderhoth on Monday April 13 2015, @05:41PM
I really hate to point this out, but reading through the comments, you're only one of a few, mostly anonymous accounts, sounding really angry.
Surely you see the hypocrisy in claiming an internet minority of natters is perpetually outraged, while being one of a few outraged in an internet forum where the most outraged are in the minority of posts.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 3, Touché) by naubol on Monday April 13 2015, @06:03PM
I wish I had mod points so I could mod you "touche".
You don't hate to point this out, however. And, you haven't added substance, either.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @09:15PM
> I wish I had mod points so I could mod you "touche".
You misspelled douche.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday April 13 2015, @07:29PM
Yeah, saying that certain minorities dominate U.S. politics is racist. And we all know that racists should be ignored, censored, and banned; and that they are angry and there is no truth to anything they say.
Because racists' cocks aren't as big as the Big, Black ones.
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Wednesday April 15 2015, @05:27AM
On the plus side my trousers/pants only need two legs … wait, what? :3
*sings a little of Grace Jones' “Pull Up To The Bumper” [wikipedia.org] (long black limousine etc.) before watching Aphex Twin's “Windowlicker” [wikipedia.org]¹* (and that must be one of the most epic Wikipedia pages ever, far better than the page on “Come To Daddy” [wikipedia.org] another song which also has a hilarious video²).
¹ “Windowlicker” on YouTube here [youtube.com] (longer is better).
² “Come To Daddy” on YouTube here [youtube.com] (perhaps less accessible comedy).
Sorry for the derailment and thank you for triggering a revisit to those videos, I really needed a few good laughs today and feel much better now :)
Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @08:24PM
> I really hate to point this out, but reading through the comments,
> you're only one of a few, mostly anonymous accounts, sounding really angry.
Ah, the "you mad bro?" rejoinder.
Now we know who has the superior argument.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday April 13 2015, @09:19PM
But I hear that Noah Ward is top in all the categories!
(Score: 3, Informative) by moondrake on Monday April 13 2015, @09:31PM
>I'm still trying to figure out how a minority secured a majority of the votes in the nominations
Where did you read they got a majority (its not in the summary or article AFAICT)? I guess they just got the most votes compared to other candidates. That is pretty unsurprising:
Strategic voting is a major problem for some voting systems. Including the Hugos. Suppose there are 100 votes and 58 novels. We can go in details and argue about distribution, but the gist of this story stays the same so lets assume the 3 best novels normally each get about 15 votes, the remaining votes (55) go to the 55 remaining ones (some of these people voted on a novel not because it was that good, but because they liked some aspect, perhaps because they though it had a nice political message, but since there are usually several novels for which this applies, things average out), so the remaining novels get just 1-2 votes at max.
Now, a minority of 20 voters collude together and all vote on the pretty lackluster, but very right wing novel X. It gets 21 votes suddenly!
Minorities get majorities all the time. Especially when the options are limited. Look at Republicans smiling when there are other moderate independent candidates (or v.v. when there are more conservative independent candidates)
(Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Monday April 13 2015, @10:28PM
This is a very good point I hadn't considered. The conservative government in Canada won a majority of the government with just 30-39% of the popular vote, so the make up a majority with just a third of all the votes.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @10:28PM
The minority did not get a majority, they got a plurality. The exact numbers won't be released until the awards are announced (i.e. after the final votes are in and counted), but the Sad/Rapid Puppies slate could not have had the majority of the votes given that it did not sweep Best Novel (which tends to get the most votes). A fifth of the nominating votes or even less is usually enough to get on the shortlist. The difference is that instead of the Sad/Rapid Puppies being encouraged to consider certain works for nomination, they were encouraged to vote for a specific slate whether they were familiar with the works or not.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Hairyfeet on Monday April 13 2015, @10:30PM
Ya know, this is why a card carrying socialist like myself is beginning to fucking HATE the left wingers. You go to the conservative sites, even Faux News, and guess what? You can be as fucking left wing as you want to and they will NOT silence you. Oh they may call you a moron, talk about you being a dumbass bleeding heart, etc but they WILL allow you to speak.
Now compare this to the left wing sites after the so called "gamergate" (which after 2 of the so called "victims" were caught actually attacking themselves and threatening themselves because the dumb shits forgot to log out their accounts before they started throwing attacks and DOXXing themselves I wouldn't trust a word any of them say as there went their credibility) like The Escapist and Ars and HuffyPo and what do you see? They are banning everybody left and right that doesn't fucking guzzle the koolaid and line up to kiss their asses and be good little toadies. For fucks sake they have 2 of the main mods on Escapist that outright fucking BRAG about how damned left wing biased they are and that isn't a problem because they are "progressive thinkers" so its okay.
I don't know about the rest of you but I can't fucking stand hypocrites and it seems like that is pretty much all that is left on the left side of the aisles anymore, its okay if WE treat minorities like tokens but YOU better follow our racial narrative, its okay if OUR leader does spying, and wiretapping, and drones and bombing but YOU better not do any of that shit or YOU are a monster, their entire platform is nothing but a platform of hypocrisy and racist shit!
And I want to say something to all those conservatives that were run out of the tent by the neocons and moral majority types...okay I get it now, I'm sorry I used to make fun of you for losing your own party. Before I could not understand how in the hell you could "lose" a party like that but now I see, it starts slowly like a cancer and it spreads, then they get their voices in the MSM and the next thing you know you are sitting outside the tent going "WTF happened?". I get that now because as a liberal socialist of the 70s the left WAS a party for individual rights over the state, of making sure EVERYBODY was treated equally, of valuing people not for their color or demographic but as people, and making sure nobody fell through the cracks. Well now left wing means progressive stacks and protected classes, political correctness treated as a religion of its own, so damned badly in fact the UK let pedos prey on white girls for fricking years because they were of a "protected class" and therefor it would "seem racist" if you busted them, it has taken everything those of us stood for in the 60s and 70s and taken a big steamer all over the damned thing, to the point they even practice classic Orwell doublespeak and will redefine what words mean on the damned fly!
As for TFA? No Mr Martin its NOT some sort of "conservative conspiracy" which just FYI those on the radical left tries to blame when somebody don't buy your bullshit, its the simple fact that the vast majority? Are NOT ultra radical politically correct left wingers, in fact you can take a hundred polls and see everyone puts the majority right smack dab in the middle. What is happening Mr Martin is just like the gamers the Sci Fi fans are sick and damned tired of THEIR pastime getting hijacked to push more and more uberleft (I would argue outright classical Marxist) politics and beliefs instead of simply allowing ALL to have a voice. I read the living hell out of Sci Fi from the 60s-80s and ya know what? While there has always been a little of the "planet of hats" kind of Sci-Fi a hell of a lot more of the Sci-Fi was the "what if" variety, about everything from time travel to robot worlds to a million fantastical places that you could read about for ages just because of how insanely beautiful the places sounded...not anymore. Now you pick up a book of short stories and its politics, politics, and oh yeah....politics. We get enough of that shit in our daily lives Mr Martin, we are sick and tired of getting it shoved in our pastimes too. I wonder how long it'll be before we find the equivalent of GG in the Sci-Fi world? Because I have zeroi doubt these Sci-Fi publishers are picking writers and stories based on how closely it follows the political narrative, there is too much sameness for it to be otherwise.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday April 14 2015, @02:16AM
Yep, no argument there.
As I point out above, in fairness one should also read Correia's response to Martin:
http://monsterhunternation.com/2015/04/09/a-response-to-george-r-r-martin-from-the-author-who-started-sad-puppies/ [monsterhunternation.com]
I've tried to keep up with both sides, but it very quickly became apparent that only one side was a "safe" place to post a dissenting opinion, and as you say, that's with the 'conservative' side. You might get argued with, mocked, or called a moron, but you won't be shouted down, disemvoweled, or silenced.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Tuesday April 14 2015, @03:27AM
This is why the conservatives have earned a LOT of respect from me, because most of their beliefs may be "trickle upon" dumb as a bag of hammers but ya know what? They DO allow other opinions and go out of their way NOT to censor the opposition! What we are seeing is the ones banning dissent, erasing posts, and calling for people to be attacked and even be jailed? It AIN'T the right wingers folks, its the left. Their so called "diversity" doesn't apply to thought or speech.
And talk about fucking racism! That is all the progressive stack is, its racism just putting different races in the "good" race and "shit" race columns. We that grew up in the 70s believed that ALL races should be equal, that a man should be measured by the content of their character, but fuuuck that says the new radical left, its ALL about what race and sex you are! Do you have ANY idea how many I've talked to that have said "Yay Hillary is running!" and when I say "Can you name me ONE, just one, policy she has that you support? Can you even name ANYTHING that you like about her other than her gender?"...crickets. Say what you will about the right but everybody I talked to that wanted to vote Romney could actually tell me of at least one policy of his they supported! But don't you dare point that out, or you are a misogynist pushing white male privilege and should be banned!
That is why I have to give the props to the conservatives, I may think they are full of shit but they allow me to say it without trying to erase me from the net.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 3, Touché) by aristarchus on Tuesday April 14 2015, @05:48AM
OK, Hairy, we get it, you are officially old and so are settling into the "conservative" camp, in spite of being all hippyish in your younger days. Nothing to be ashamed of, as long as you're honest about it. I truly hope you enjoy watching Fox News from now on, and saying "Benghazi, Benghazi!" a lot. But I have to ask, why do you think any of us need to know this? And what does it have to do with the Hugo awards? Does Micro$erf actually pay you when you go "off the reservation" like this?
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Tuesday April 14 2015, @07:32AM
Oh go and fuck yourself you damned SJW! I believe in universal healthcare, that every person should be treated equally, that all deserve a home, food, clothes, and access to medical care no matter what race or income, I believe that gays should be given the same rights as straights, that we should not go to war for "national interests" but only to actually protect ourselves against those that attack us directly....where in the fuck does that make me a "conservative"?
Just because I refuse to believe that some races and sexes are better than the others, refuse to believe in an "oppression scale" that allows those that have been oppressed in the past to be oppressive now, and will never EVAR in a million fucking eons will I EVAR support censoring or even jailing people for speech...but THAT is what an SJW considers "progressive" so if you consider everyone that isn't a member of the PC police a "conservative"? Then I hate to break the news to ya but a good 90% of the planet must be right wing.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday April 14 2015, @07:40AM
Please continue, Sir! (My god this is getting tiring. Hairy, just admit it already, you have crossed the great divide, you have bought the right-wing media portrayal of the left that you used to be part of. And now you are defending racists and sexists because they, too, have a point of view. Next, Nazi's weren't so bad? We won't censor you, but your rants are becoming less coherent, and definitely less interesting. So, who is your favorite Science Fiction author?)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by cubancigar11 on Tuesday April 14 2015, @08:53AM
This is ridiculous. The problem with claiming 'All nazis are bad people' is not that all nazis are not bad people, it is that you can pretty much call anyone bad by calling them nazi without proving why they are bad. For example, this is exactly what you have done. People like you ruin left. It is like that moron who read one book on newtonian physics and now goes around calling all physicists a pseudo-scientists for believing in relativity.
(Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Tuesday April 14 2015, @04:11PM
I'm in agreement there. In the early days of GamerGate the FIRST thing the media and opposition did was, "GAMERGATE IS MOSIGYONIST, GAMERGATE IS THE KKK, GAMERGATE IS WORSE THAN ISIS, GAMERGATE ARE LITERAL NAZIS" and people sucked it up.
Go to just about ANY game site and say you feel ethics are a good thing for journalists, or professionals in general, to strive for and it's, "STFU YOU GAMERGATE GOON!!"
It's all guilt by association. Make your opposition such a taboo that anyone fence sitting will be afraid to accidentally fall on to their side.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday April 15 2015, @06:21AM
OMG. Let's do the math. You are a Nazi. Now, you may not buy into that whole "superior Race" thing, but you are loyal to your nation that seems to have bought into it. And rounding up Communists, Socialists (other than the Nationalist kind, of course), Homosexuals, Jews, Gypsies, and actual Catholics, you did not agree with any of that, even though you participated in it. And the whole work/death camp thing of the "final solution", yes you acceded to it but it always seemed a bit extreme to you. Couldn't we just send these aberrant writers of science fiction to another country instead of killing them all? Of course, as a "good" Nazi, you would never dare say such a thing, and so by silent tacit consent, you are responsible for the entire Nazi program. That is what it means to say there are no good Nazis, if they were good, they would be in the camps as a political prisoner. not still wearing the uniform and bearing arms. So what of the Sad Puppies? Good Nazis, or Bad Nazis? Not so bad right wing fanatics and Mormons, or just Science fictions writers who want to be able to have a hard-on and conquer evil lesser races, like Slavs? Let's not go all Godwin at once, since I really think it is possible to get there by slow steps. "Service guarantees Citizenship! Want to know more?" Fascism, pure and simple, only redeeming quality is that it is fiction, after all.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Wednesday April 15 2015, @09:10AM
What do you mean by 'You are a nazi'?
You are a woman. Now you may not have a vagina, or you might even like girls... ugh.. the brain is already hurting by imitating your strenuous reply. Just. Keep it simple stupid.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday April 16 2015, @09:05AM
Evidently I did not keep it simple enough for you. I would give you a "whoosh", but I am afraid that would go right over your head as well. Stay cool, bro, don't ever change!
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Saturday April 18 2015, @11:56AM
You can't make so many assumptions and keep it is generalized. I don't know what your personal experiences are but most things don't happen with so much planning or are how things run. At some time you need to stop looking at rest of the humanity under discovery channel - as if there are certain 'type' of people and this or that is their behavior.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Tuesday April 14 2015, @09:24PM
Kiss my hair ass SJW, you can't find a single fucking conservative blog, not a single fucking website, that supports even HALF of what I just listed, because because I won't grovel and beg like a beta male like yourself "I MUST be X" because you are sooo damned programmed to grovel and beg anybody that doesn't MUST be the enemy!
Go and kiss the feet of a woman and cry about your CIS white male privilege somewhere else SJW, your kind is an ass cancer on the ass of society and the only nice thing I can say is thank the Gods I do not believe in that no woman will give your kind any pussy so you'll die off in a single generation, probably caring for some woman's half a dozen kids by other men while she fucks around on you.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday April 14 2015, @10:19PM
So you have read "Fifty Shades of Gray"!
Accusations that someone may not be able to control the fertility of their female is very misogynist, by the way. And what makes you think I am male, anyway?
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Wednesday April 15 2015, @06:03AM
100% agreement, thank you for voicing what those of us who (in this case) are not socialists simply can't do in the same manner, as well as informing the rest of us (for example I haven't paid much attention to Gamergate and very seldom end up at places like Huffington since I'm not part of the target audience). It's no consolation but it's happening to a lot of different people (and sometimes more than once) as you've already pointed out and maybe, hopefully (I hate that word but can't find a good alternative), many are learning ultimately beneficial lessons (to all) the hard way.
I can only chime in that it's no better in Europe on a range of topics, if anything perhaps a little worse although in some ways maybe a bit better. One example is that people have relatively new political alternatives, sometimes both on the right and the left as in the UK i.e. both UKIP and the Green Party, not that either manages to avoid all the baggage (disclaimer: I'm not British either). Not that it will do much good if people don't want to vote for them or others like them (not that I trust either polling or voting any more but that's in some ways beside the point and more a result of increased general active distrust than anything else). And even when there aren't yet new alternatives there are at least hints of internal rise of awareness and constructive internal division (but it might still be a pipe dream).
Anyway: thank you.
Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Hairyfeet on Wednesday April 15 2015, @08:48AM
I actually learned about it from my gay son, who was told he "wasn't really gay" and threatened as well for simply saying "Having the press be objective is a good thing, no matter the profession". It was then I first tried actually rationally talking to the SJWs....after all I'm a socialist, in fact come from a long line of socialists going back to my great grandfather who was a card carrying socialist during the depression, so if these people are "left wing" then surely we can have a rational discussion of their beliefs since we MUST have some common ground to work from....right?
OH FUCK NO, these people are to the left what the Aryan Nation is to the right, they are soooo fucking far off the deep end that honestly? I do not think anybody should even use the term "left wing" because they are so fucking racist, sexist, and outright hate filled I seriously can't find a single thing they have in common with the classical term of leftist. Look up "progressive stack" to see how your voice means NOTHING unless you are one of the "historically oppressed classes" and even then your voice counts ONLY if you agree with them, otherwise you are a "token" or a "sockpuppet" of a CIS white male. The amount of hatred they have spewed at gays, the disabled such as telling one man who couldn't walk he was a "worthless fat fuck" and hoped he die of AIDS simply for saying he disagreed with their attacking minorities and called for civil discussion. As I said they threatened my son and called him a puppet for daring to say what he said, attacked me as a "CIS racist misogynist" for saying we should all be equal and that calling every man who doesn't support radical feminism a "rape apologist" was simply throwing names instead of debating the subject, hell I could go on all day with example after example from their very own mouths where you are either with them 100% on every issue or you are a fucking monster.
And the way they treat white men is just disgusting, it goes against everything Dr King fought for and we struggled for in the 60s until today. If you are a white male you are worthless, it is your function to have NO pride in yourself, your sole function is to grovel and beg forgiveness of every single thing a white man has ever done even if it had nothing to do with you. the fact my relatives were in Ireland during slavery and were treated no better than blacks when they got here (I'm sure you've seen the "no niggers, no Chinks, No Irish" signs from back then) doesn't matter, I'm white so therefor I somehow "earned privilege" simply from being born white. As I said in another post racism is racism and the way they argued that hate crime laws were wrong NOT because charging people for what may have been in their heart was wrong but instead because a black man that set a 14 year old boy on fire while yelling "Kill a whitey for Treyvon!" was threatened with charged with a hate crime while "not taking into account historical racism"...so its okay to be racist and commit an obvious hate crime as long as the target is white?
This is why, while I have ZERO beliefs in ANYTHING their party stands for? I can at least give respect to the right wing for valuing free speech and refusing to censor those like me that don't believe as they do. Go to any of the sites the SJWs frequent and see how quickly even the most rational speech that doesn't follow their cult like groupthink gets banned. They scream about being attacked but when somebody has a different opinion, or points out when key figures they practically worship was caught attacking themselves because they forgot to log out before they started trolling for sympathy? You will see what they are REALLY about as here comes the threats, the insults, the attacks. Notice how that one refused to believe I could be ANYTHING other than an ultra right winger simply because i did not subscribe to radical Marxism and what they call "positive racism", you see you can't have a difference of opinion because they are always right about everything therefor the ONLY answer is you are "the other" which is fair game.
Again please don't take my word for it, speak to them yourselves, its not hard to find where the SJWs hang out. You'll find out they aren't activists, and certainly not the left wing, if anything they display a cult like behavior that reminds me of groups...well like the Aryan Nation, The Birthers, and other groups that are so radical nobody would seriously consider to be in the same tent as those that are left OR right.
(Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Wednesday April 15 2015, @12:07PM
Just point people to GamerGhazi and ask them to go talk to them. Ghazi has been the best thing to push anyone on to the pro-GamerGate side.
http://reddit.com/r/GamerGhazi [reddit.com]
Five minutes with those wackos is everything you just described. They will right out mock, shame and ban anyone for any dissenting opinions. What's ridiculous is it's almost always cis-white-males claiming they're speaking for all women and minorities, while attacking women and minorities. Here's just one of many examples I can provide, if you scroll up in the conversation he even uses the "internalized misogyny" argument on someone after she told him she was a women.
https://twitter.com/JQWhiskeyGinger/status/588153376296329217 [twitter.com]
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Wednesday April 15 2015, @06:16PM
They are....well I originally hated the term because too many tried to use it to label somebody by how they look, but if the shoe fits...beta males that have been so browbeaten by the radicals that all they can do is grovel and beg, its damned shameful really. I have literally seen one go on and on about how whites are worthless and should be wiped from the earth and blacks should be given control of the planet...and he was as white as a '64 Barbie doll. It was truly pathetic just how beaten down they are, they have ZERO pride in themselves, their history, nothing. No pride at all, just groveling and begging. Its disgusting.
And for all their talk I have NEVER in all my years of the Internet met a group more racist, not even close. For all their talk about how great the other races are members of those races better not have a differing opinion, otherwise they are a "token" that is "cooning" or even be told they outright do not exist, as they could ONLY be a sockpuppet of a CIS white male, which is their bogey man. Which as you pointed out is ironic as hell as the majority there are CIS white males!
I'll be sure to point them there because as I said they really don't need to take MY word for any of it, trying to have a rational dialog with an SJW is all it takes to see what a pit of vipers they are. Narcissist, racist, hate filled, sexist, and so programmed by dogma they make a Scientologist look like a free thinker. that is why that SJW can accuse me of being "an unperson" all he wants (bet my last buck its a beta CIS white male) but I have been to some of the most ardent right wing websites and even though we have exactly fuck and all in common, and my viewpoints are in direct opposition to everything they support....I've never been banned, never been silenced, hell I can't even remember a single one of them threatening me unless you call saying "I should get to try living under communism" as a threat ( because apparently the right don't know that socialism and communism are 2 different things) but nobody called for me to be silenced or outright murdered...sure as fuck did on the SJW side though, that and a LOT worse.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday April 16 2015, @09:10AM
I have literally seen one go on and on about how whites are worthless and should be wiped from the earth and blacks should be given control of the planet...and he was as white as a '64 Barbie doll.
Sounds good to me, Hairfoot! Better than having to run Micro$oft! And I am whiter than all Barbie dolls. You do refer to Klaus Barbie, do you not? So, what militia do you belong to?
(Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Thursday April 16 2015, @10:46AM
Wow, that was really uncalled for. Unfortunately over the last 8 months, I've actually seen people making the argument Hairyfeet was talking about. There are terrible people out there that say and do terrible things in the name of "Social Justice". I have no issue with giving people a leg up, I have a huge problem with cut off the legs of those who are doing better, whether it's because they're privileged or because they just worked hard or even maybe because they're women/minorities that just don't fall in line.
https://twitter.com/MyOwnGalPal/status/588532142210093060 [twitter.com]
https://twitter.com/MyOwnGalPal/status/588538384156614657 [twitter.com]
https://twitter.com/MyOwnGalPal/status/588538873371758592 [twitter.com]
https://twitter.com/ListerTheFister/status/588541605734436864 [twitter.com]
https://twitter.com/ListerTheFister/status/588544528614879233 [twitter.com]
https://twitter.com/ParanoidsBible/status/588550559575252992 [twitter.com]
https://twitter.com/demasking_woo/status/588533037790588928 [twitter.com]
https://twitter.com/MyOwnGalPal/status/588536995485356032 [twitter.com]
There's a ton more in the #StopWebH8 tag, but I think the above kind of makes the point
https://twitter.com/search?f=realtime&q=%23StopWebH8&src=tyah [twitter.com]
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Thursday April 16 2015, @12:29PM
See what I mean? He is white and calling for the murder of his own race....THAT is how programmed and browbeaten he is, he literally can have ZERO pride in anything about himself because he is a beta white male. And notice how it does not matter that I am a card carrying socialist that believes in everything from gay rights to universal health care because I won't grovel and beg for forgiveness for things nobody in my family ever did (as I said we were in Ireland during slavery and when we got here we were poor share croppers that were discriminated against ourselves) I MUST be a right winger because only a right winger could ever be against them, special snowflakes that they are.
And there have to be a couple of admins at this site that is SJWs because myself and several others have pointed out that several users have been targeted by modbombing...not a damned thing has been done. Hell I had one post that simply said "You can't judge how old a PC is by it coming with XP as it was sold nationally until 2009" that went from +5 to -1 to +5 more than 3 times in less than 12 hours! And looking at my messages just yesterday I had multiple posts doing the same thing, +5 to 0 to +5 over and over....this is not surprising as SJWs do not believe anybody but themselves have the right to free speech but you can be sure its gonna turn off a lot of people from contributing here as nobody likes a biased site.
But of course this sadly is the SOP of the SJW, get in a position with a little bit of clout and wreck the joint, and if they can't do that use an army or sockpuppets to bury anybody who does not think like they do, no matter the race or sex. I have ZERO doubt if you look at those under modbomb attack you'll find its only a couple of IP addresses that are doing this to the same users over and over AND OVER, this is obviously stalking, but again not a thing will be done. Its sad as I had high hopes for this site but now find myself spending more and more time at pipedot.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Thursday April 16 2015, @01:52PM
An interesting tactic I've seen used in comment sections using Disqus, people will create sock accounts and go argue with people. After they've racked up hundreds of comments, they delete the account leaving a ton of comments all marked as "guest" which makes it look like there was a shit ton of people in the comments disagreeing with like 20 people. When in fact it was 1 - 2 people arguing with everyone else.
My theory is they used named accounts because they suspect people will be on their side and/or as a signifier for others that they're an ally so they can "circle jerk" and "dog pile" certain commenters. If things go south, they delete the named account making it look like exponentially more people were on their side. This actually happened on the ABC Nightline video that linked Anita Sarkeesian's "harassment" with GamerGate
This was a very insightful video [youtube.com] that explains the mentality and how people could use conformity to trick people into thinking they're going against popular opinion, which either keeps them from speaking out or gets them to join in so they conform to the group.
Just reading though the SN comments on this article you notice a ton of Anonymous comments, a lot use language and grammar signifiers that you could pretty confidently say they're coming from the same person. You might even be able to pick out the named account with a pretty high degree of certainty the AC comments are actually coming from if you read really carefully. People trying to make it sound like anyone not denouncing Sad Puppies are on board because of some "conspiracy" or they talk about "secret cabals", when in fact it's been known for years there are individual authors self promoting, submitted slates and campaigned for votes. There's nothing conspiratorial or secret about it, but a good way to discredit someone is to make them look like a conspiracy nut. Even if they have actual evidence and can point to specific people and recorded past behavior supporting it.
If you can't attack the argument, attack the person making it.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Thursday April 16 2015, @08:16PM
Don't forget the stalking, my son ended up getting rid of his FB account because he was constantly getting attacks from SJWs simply because he was a gay that refused to support their bullshit. I've had to spend entire weekends dealing with tech support at sites like Yahoo and Google because they would try to lock me out of my account by making repeatedly login attempts until it would throw a flag on their system.
And like I said I had high hopes that this site would be a return to the old Slash, where we could actually talk about tech without all the political bullshit but myself and several others have been stalked and modbombed almost daily (some others are reporting their are under constant attack) and the response from the admins? they just mod the person back up, which does fuck and all about the stalking and sockpuppets. I mean its really not hard to spot, hell I could probably write a script in 5 minutes that would flag and highlight modbombers...when you have a single IP address downmodding the same user on multiple posts or multiple times? Its a modbomber. If a person gets modded to +5 and then suddenly drops to 0 the day after it leaves the front page where the majority won't see what is going on? Modbomb.
If a site doesn't stop shit? You can be pretty sure that one or more admins support it, because any rational person knows that if you let shit like this goes on it just emboldens the stalkers and they WILL escalate. I saw this on other sites, such as OSNews where they said "Its a free speech issue"...until they ended up with a couple articles that were filled with over 200 posts by brand new accounts saying "choke on a cock you dyke bitch" targeting a lesbian poster that was being stalked. If you wanna see what this site will end up if they don't get a handle on it? Look at the forums of Jezebel or the Escapist, where its nothing but a handful of "yes I agree completely" asskissers that agree with everything the admins say or do while the userbase dies as nobody wants to contribute to an echo chamber.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Thursday April 16 2015, @10:49AM
Wish I could respond to more than one person at a time, because my response to aristarchus above was also a response agreeing with you, in spite of the fact I rarely agree with you.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Hairyfeet on Thursday April 16 2015, @01:17PM
That's okay Vanderhoth, I rarely agree with you either but unlike aristarchus (who I really wouldn't be surprised to find out he is one of my modbombing stalkers) support you 100% in your right to express your disagreement and differing opinion.
As I told someone on Ars I have been stalked across multiple websites, been DOXXed and have been threatened, had one of them follow me around for over a year that would post over and over "die you fat fuck DIE!!" dozens of times any place I posted, even had to deal with multiple attempts to have my online accounts broken into but I will NEVER be silenced and will NEVER support silencing of those with differing opinions.
Oh sure I may call them a dumbass, may post citations to back up my position or come up with a test to show their BS is BS like with the challenge, but my grandfather and great uncle suffered their entire lives from what happened to them in WWII so I will never support and will fight tooth and nail against anybody that tries to silence free speech, even if I don't agree with a single word they say. That is the difference between a socialist like myself and an SJW, we socialists welcome debate and will be happy to argue our positions for hours, someone who is programmed by dogma like the SJWs? Will insult and try to silence. They remind me of cults like Scientology or Stefan Molyneux with his "DeFOOing", one is simply not allowed to have any opinion but theirs or you are "other" and MUST be wiped out.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 5, Touché) by fritsd on Monday April 13 2015, @11:51AM
Call it the "Bill, the Galactic Hero" awards, to attract a more discerning audience than those goat-sock-wearing leftie worry-warts.
Bill, surely a true-blood American name, like e.g. Buffalo Bill
Galactic, there's the SF angle
Hero, because the function of SF is to unify the people and set them examples of obedience, loyalty, and bravery.
And then they can rename themselves from "Rabid/Sad Puppies" to Reichskulturkammer [wikipedia.org], while they're at it.
</sarcasm>
(Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Monday April 13 2015, @04:23PM
Man. I was going to post with references to Heinlein/Troopers mentality - but you nailed it with on-point satire.
Let's bug Jack Barron.
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 2, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Monday April 13 2015, @12:04PM
Science fiction has never been politically correct. Don't like the awards? Boycott them. Just run along, and have your own merry little party. Call the the "Gay Fags Space Opera Awards", or whatever the hell you like.
Libs have been attacking some of the best known names in Sci-Fi for years now. Go read "Starship Trooper" again. It was written by a fucking LIBERTARIAN, with some pretty hard core attitudes. No, no, no - don't watch the MOVIE again. READ THE GOD DAMNED BOOK!! Yeah, I realize, you common core fanatics are probably not literate enough to read an entire printed book, but try anyway.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @12:16PM
Hey look! A faux-libertarian unhappy about being marginalized by people acting in their own interests instead of his.
It's so much easier to be a libertarian when your group is on top.
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Wednesday April 15 2015, @07:43AM
I'm not much of a writer but one thing I've learnt about books (or reading) is that any book etc. is written anew each time someone reads it. That's part of the magic.
The differences between the versions in each persons head might be minute and subtle or they might be enormous to the point of belonging to entirely separate universes with nothing in common and unerringly the differences in interpretation discloses information about the reader at the time they read it.
If they read it again, straight away or years later, they can end up with a completely different book (or even nothing at all). When this happens again and again and catches the reader a little off guard things get really interesting. I once had a common-law wife that possibly got that out of the Lord of the Rings trilogy of books (I don't) although I might be overestimating/misinterpreting her, maybe she just enjoyed soothing mi/e-ndless repetition, anybody can have that need. “I am not the same person I was a second ago” as the Buddhist thought goes.
When groups of people come to the same conclusions and stick with those conclusions as a group over decades (the “Heinlein is a fascist” leftist theme started right away all the way back in the seventies and eighties) it says something. Precisely what it says is up for debate in each case, from my point of view in this case it shouts “these people are acting like narrow-minded morons trapped in a deep pit of static/unchanging/dogmatic thought-suffocating ideology”, that's how I /read/ you ;) How /I/ read you. Did you get that twist/boomerang or was it lost on you? Can you comprehend the possibility of someone deliberately weakening their own argument for a purpose? Applying it to themselves? In addition to that there's the “when you're opened you're red” (paraphrased) and all that.
Now excuse me as I keep riding my high horse into our mutual doom. I only tried to give your brain a friendly kick, it would be better if you realized you need to do that yourself just as much as everyone else needs to and isn't that a lot of what (at least) science fiction is about?
P.S. do /you/ also think every crime writer is a murderer? Or that any writer with characters of both/any sexes are themselves hermaphrodites or much more but certainly not “only” male or female? Give some thought as to why the questions are relevant/how they relate to your opinion of Heinlein.
Best of luck!
P.P.S. in my case I'm not a libertarian, I'm “far far right” (or something like that, either way much further to the right than you're likely to be able to conceive or identify when I say I consider Nazis to be on the far left) and not particularly enthralled by Heinlein (except maybe Stranger in a Strange Land), I'm much more fond of Phillip K. Dick and short fiction and microfiction/flash fiction [365tomorrows.com] science fiction although I can't indulge as much in it as I'd like to (I can remember how embarrassingly and naively shocked I was once upon a time when my excellent muslim fellow teacher/co-worker complained likewise (“I can't find the time to read any more”) and now I'm pretty much in the same place).
Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))
(Score: 4, Insightful) by TheRaven on Monday April 13 2015, @12:28PM
Go read "Starship Trooper" again
Why? It was dire, though not as bad as The Cat Who Walks Through Walls or either of the two books that Heinlein wrote where the main character achieved his boyhood dream of building a time machine so that he could go back in time and fuck his mother[1]. If you want portrayal of Libertarian societies from someone who can actually write, Neal Asher does a fairly good job in a few of his books (though manages to write negatively about pretty much every political ideology, so it's quite entertaining reading the Amazon comments from people who got to the Owner trilogy and found their beliefs being attacked for a change).
No, no, no - don't watch the MOVIE again. READ THE GOD DAMNED BOOK!!
The movie was entertaining, though not particularly engaging, satire. The book was just bad. If you have to pick one, watch the movie - at least it's amusing.
Yeah, I realize, you common core fanatics are probably not literate enough to read an entire printed book, but try anyway.
The best thing about Starship Troopers was that it was short, which makes your claims that reading the entire thing require some unusual level of literacy quite entertaining.
[1] Number of the Beast and Time Enough for Love (where 'Love' seems to be a synonym for 'Eugenics'), if you don't believe me.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 4, Insightful) by microtodd on Monday April 13 2015, @12:42PM
I'm curious why you think Starship Troopers was bad. You don't really say. I personally enjoyed it. It was basically world-building with a specific political ideology in mind. So it was a look at a possible future (speculative fiction) if certain governmental and societal components occurred.
Was it realistic? I don't know. The psychological theories presented were interesting. To me, the two most interesting ones were a) corporal/physical punishment, often extreme, affects behavior in positive ways. The girl in Rico's H&MP class said she never got in trouble because she didn't want to get lashes. (would that happen in real life? history seems to say no...severe corporal punishment occurs in certain parts of the world and yet there are still "bad guys"). and b), that war is a form of controlled violence, of using force to achieve political objectives, up to that point *and no more*! So basically the opposite of total war.
It seems like history has said these ideas are wrong, but they were interesting to read about.
One part that was accurate, I think, was the training and military structure. "Train as you fight" is a real US Army motto, and there's the idea that if the training is really frickin' hard then the real thing will be easy. And the idea that a small, highly trained, well-equipped team is better than a large army of cannon fodder? Yeah, recent conflicts have shown that's true.
So no, I didn't think it was a bad book. Why did you? I'm honestly curious,
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Monday April 13 2015, @01:02PM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by fadrian on Monday April 13 2015, @01:22PM
Sorry son, but midlife Heinlein doesn't hold up that well. The characters are cutout and, although the story is well-paced, the plot has several holes, the dialog is constrained by the subject matter and has little place to shine. They exposition itself is fairly mid-20 cen pulp language - stereotyped scenes in generic places. Just not enough life in the story to keep me engaged as a story.
Sure the political ideas might be great (to some - not so much to me), but you need a story to keep the reader engaged while the exposition goes along. Bradbury could write; Asimov could write; Ellison didn't write - he fucked life into the dead corpse of his stories by dint of pure imagination; Heinlein? He was able to make a living writing, so I guess that's something. But I'd rather read his past history stories from earlier days of pulp when expectations were lower or his later work like Job or Friday, when he finally got a bit of a handle on writing dialog, even if he was trying to fuck his own mom all the time. The years when STroop came out was a wasteland for him, as far as I'm concerned.
That is all.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Monday April 13 2015, @04:27PM
Ellison didn't write - he fucked life into the dead corpse of his stories by dint of pure imagination.
Great take! And delivered with perfect Ellison tone of profane aggression, mixing contempt and admiration.
And? He's not dead.
REPENT!
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 2) by fadrian on Thursday April 16 2015, @04:30PM
Hey, Ticktockman, I didn't mean to imply he wasn't still doing it... Thank whatevs.
That is all.
(Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Thursday April 16 2015, @10:02PM
I know. Internet shorthand. :-)
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday April 13 2015, @03:06PM
Have you read Tom Kratman? His books are available on Amazon Kindle - I don't have a Kindle, so I have them delivered to Amazon Cloud, and read them with a browser. I've liked all of his books so far, and he uses that philosophy extensively in his writings. He has done a separate little essay on that subject, and I believe it is free. Let me find the link . . .
http://www.amazon.com/Training-War-Essay-Tom-Kratman-ebook/dp/B00JQI9TH2/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1428937515&sr=1-1&keywords=training+for+war+tom+kratman [amazon.com]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by tadas on Monday April 13 2015, @05:23PM
I'm a person on the Left of the political spectrum - literally a card-carrying member of the ACLU and NAACP (I had to ask to get a physical card). I disagree with must of Kratman's political philosophy -- and I'll automatically buy any of his novels because he's a great storyteller (I accept the politics in the story in the same way I accept the "science" - for the duration). Same goes for a lot of David Drake (don't like his Belisarius books for some reason). Same for even a flaming Libertarian like L Neil Smith.
Same goes for Heinlein - but only the "juvies" - Citizen of the Galaxy, Tunnel in the Sky and Starman Jones to name a few. TheRaven's summary of the midlife Heinlein "adult" books is pretty much right on. I think the universe gave him a giant karma payback when the hippies picked up on "grok" and Stranger in a Strange Land and spent the decade of the 60's annoying him mightily....
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday April 13 2015, @01:14PM
The best thing about Starship Troopers was that it was short, which makes your claims that reading the entire thing require some unusual level of literacy quite entertaining.
Insults are like that.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Monday April 13 2015, @04:35PM
Starship Troopers? Crypto-Fascist love poem to the sacred homoerotic sublimation of military boot camp.
But Heinlein was a decent human being - a man who changed many of his assumptions and judgements over the course of his life. He was as many worlds apart from Philip K Dick as a man could be, but was helpful when most needed, without being asked or expected.
"Several years ago, when I was ill, Heinlein offered his help, anything he could do, and we had never met; he would phone me to cheer me up and see how I was doing. He wanted to buy me an electric typewriter, God bless him — one of the few true gentlemen in this world. I don't agree with any ideas he puts forth in his writing, but that is neither here nor there. One time when I owed the IRS a lot of money and couldn't raise it, Heinlein loaned the money to me. I think a great deal of him and his wife; I dedicated a book to them in appreciation. Robert Heinlein is a fine-looking man, very impressive and very military in stance; you can tell he has a military background, even to the haircut. He knows I'm a flipped-out freak and still he helped me and my wife when we were in trouble. That is the best in humanity, there; that is who and what I love."
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick [wikiquote.org]
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 2) by tadas on Monday April 13 2015, @07:10PM
Starship Troopers? Crypto-Fascist love poem to the sacred homoerotic sublimation of military boot camp.
I'm surprised that nobody has yet mentioned one of Science Fiction's great touchés - Joe Haldeman's The Forever War. In it, the troopers' sacrifices turn out to be the result of a great misunderstanding. A great "answer record".
(Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Monday April 13 2015, @09:19PM
Yes! Haldeman and Harrison. Worth a mountain of Spinrad and Ellison.
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday April 13 2015, @09:40PM
Starship Troopers? Crypto-Fascist love poem to the sacred homoerotic sublimation of military boot camp.
So, It's just like 300, but without Gerard Butler or all the Greek nonsense?
(Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Tuesday April 14 2015, @12:10AM
The racism is directed at ACTUAL inhumans - not anti-historical, dehumanized stand ins for racist "clash of civilizations", like 300. ;-)
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday April 14 2015, @09:31AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by naubol on Tuesday April 14 2015, @04:21PM
I read "Starship Troopers" as though it were satire, and that made it quite interesting. Or, maybe it was Heinlein being Heinlein, screwing around with big ideas to see how they tasted. I quite like that.
Personally, I feel that the idea of "tasting" big ideas is so anti-conservative as to be the polar opposite of what they intend, which is why it is so strange that Heinlein ever gets brought up as a conservative author, to me.
So much else of what he wrote would make them gag. Telescopic view of the world, I suppose...
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Monday April 13 2015, @03:34PM
OK I'm confused. Is that "libs" as in "libertarians" (How the American left insultingly refers to the hardcore right) or "libs" as in "liberals" (The apparently derogatory term applied by the right to the left.)
Will you guys across the pond just buy a thesaurus already [giantitp.com]?
(Score: 1, Redundant) by Runaway1956 on Monday April 13 2015, @03:50PM
Sorry, Auntie - we don't need or want a thesaurus for our in-house fighting. So far, since midnight, I've been called a religitard, I've learned that Christians in the Mideast should just leave despite the fact that their forefathers were living there before Mohammed was born. I've learned that those Christians in the mideast "deserve" to die because of religitards like me. So many libs, so few bullets . . .
Your second guess was right though. "Lib" is a derogatory name for the self styled liberal left in the United States. When I am talking about libertarians, I spell that out, so as not to confuse anyone. Libs know and expect that - they understand that libertarians deserve that courtesy, while liberals do not.
As I said about Sci-Fi, I have never been "politically correct", and I shall never be.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @04:47PM
> OK I'm confused. Is that "libs" as in "libertarians" (How the American left insultingly refers to the hardcore right)
I've never heard "lib" used that way.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 14 2015, @11:49AM
I've never heard it used either way. Libs are what you pass to the linker.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by naubol on Monday April 13 2015, @04:08PM
I wanted to respond, but someone has already written better words, namely GRRM at this link... http://grrm.livejournal.com/420090.html [soylentnews.org]
[[CORREIA: Hypothetical question, if Robert Heinlein wrote Starship Troopers in 2014, could he get on the Hugo ballot now? Or would he be labeled a fascist with troubling ideas, and a product of the neo-colonial patriarchy? And before you dismiss that question, maybe you should read up on what the voting clique that shall not be named says about Heinlein now. Sadly, I suspect the only way Heinlein could get on the ballot today would be if my horde of uncouth barbarian outsiders got involved and put him on our suggested slate.]]
Kind of ironic that you should bring up Heinlein, since it was the Puppy slate that knocked William Patterson's Heinlein biography off the Related Works shortlist this year. But to answer your question, I don't think Heinlein would write STARSHIP TROOPERS in 2014. If you know Heinlein, you know that he was a man who changed with the times throughout his career. He was always trying new things, new techniques, new challenges... and his political views changed HUGELY over his lifetime. He wrote much of STARSHIP TROOPERS and STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND at the same time, yet one book is beloved of conservative military buffs while the other became a hippie bible. I have no idea what he would be writing in 2014... but if he were still at the top of his form, I would love to read it.
For what my opinion is worth, I can imagine Heinlein being rather disgusted by the sad puppies, because the only political constant I can find in any of his works is that he hated people who reasoned poorly and he hated demagoguery.
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Tuesday April 14 2015, @09:09AM
I dunno, for the bible belt conservative fan there is a fairly constant support of the scared institution of marriage* even in moral/ethical frameworks thousands of years hence, particularly in his later work.
*Albeit one marriage to as many people as possible with a bit of peadophilia and incest thrown in, but thats ok because... starship troopers
(Score: 2) by Nobuddy on Monday April 13 2015, @07:07PM
While you are slobbing Heinlein's knob in a fit of Libertarian ecstasy, perhaps you should educate yourself. He wrote "Stranger in a Strange Land" at the same time. You should read it.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Monday April 13 2015, @07:38PM
Perhaps you should read the comments above. 'Stranger' was appropriated by the hippes - it wasn't meant to be anything that liberals would like.
Remember TANSTAAFL?
Oh, that slobbing knobs business? That is mostly for liberals. I suppose that Heinlein was into that too, but I'm not THAT libertarian. You go ahead though, enjoy yourself. Some people like tube steak, some of us don't.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday April 13 2015, @12:19PM
Martin, Scalzi, and the rest of their little elitist, lefty, SJW group can eat a dick. Neither sci-fi nor the Hugos belong to them.
They're not a majority of authors. They're not a majority of readers. They're only a majority of loud-mouthed assholes who want to censor anything that doesn't agree with their narrative.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @12:24PM
> Entitled
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @01:32PM
So you agree with vote stuffing? You agree that you should ruin something specifically for personal beliefs? This is the third time they've tried because they couldn't legitimately get a single author into the list, whom apparently was pedestrian enough to not be able to get voted in twice. But now, lo and behold, it's time for the "we hate gays" trolls to come out of the woodwork, and let's not say that this was some populist uprising, it only takes hundreds of people to sway this outcome which any middling author can get in the age of the internet based on ideology alone. Plainly this was a PR move that promotes racism, homophobia, and ultra-right wing libertarianism. Any grown adult realizes this is wrong. You're entitled to your opinion but you're still wrong.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday April 13 2015, @01:43PM
Vote stuffing? Try again. Or do you mean that they're letting the "wrong kind of people" vote? Yeah, that's what I thought.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Monday April 13 2015, @04:27PM
Vote stuffing? Try again. Or do you mean that they're letting the "wrong kind of people" vote? Yeah, that's what I thought.
So there is nothing wrong with "mod bombing" on this site, then? Is mod bombing simply letting the "wrong kind of people vote?"
For someone who thinks gaming the system is OK you sure do spend a lot of effort trying to prevent it.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @04:58PM
Buzz is like Scalia - a man of principles and integrity (just ask him!) so long as everything lines up with his principles.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday April 13 2015, @09:49PM
So there is nothing wrong with "mod bombing" on this site, then? Is mod bombing simply letting the "wrong kind of people vote?"
Nothing wrong with mod-bombing on this site. It has happened to me and I quite thoroughly enjoyed it. The point is that everyone gets to vote, so there really is nothing unfair about it, unless you are a sad puppy Soylentil.
I don't think it means what you think it means.
And I am sure it does not mean what the Mighty Buzz thinks it means. But then, he is saying Social Justice Warrior (please spell it out for true American Glory!) as if that was a bad thing! Honestly, I do not know what to say, other than "Vote for Noah Ward in all categories!!" in the Hugo balloting.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @10:40PM
> But then, he is saying Social Justice Warrior (please spell it out for true American Glory!) as if that was a bad thing!
Better an SJW than a DSI - defender of social injustice.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday April 14 2015, @10:40AM
So there is nothing wrong with "mod bombing" on this site, then?
Honestly, I'm mystified by the obsession over mod bombing. I have yet to see anyone link to a serious case of it.
(Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Tuesday April 14 2015, @04:18PM
I've been out if it for awhile, what is mod bombing?
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Tuesday April 14 2015, @11:39PM
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday April 14 2015, @02:31AM
As a comment on one of the SP blogs put it:
Hugos: We need more people participating! Get all your friends to buy a membership and vote!
SPs: Okay.
Hugos: NO! NO!! WE DIDN'T MEAN IT THAT WAY!!
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @04:02PM
Uumm, for the past decade or two if you didn't write to the SJW plan you didn't get nominated. You could have written the best ScFi book of the year but if it didn't have themes like WOMAN POWER and how all men are SCUM, then you bloody well couldn't be nominated.
Your book could have been garbage and had a transgender robot and that would be why it was nominated, or have absolutely jack shit to do with ScFi as long as you wrote to the SJW playbook.
ANOTHER, group came along and sponsored regular ScFi books, and gets condemned for it. Especially because they did it within the rules, by doing the exact same thing the SJW group did.
Would you say Star Wars was crap because there were no homosexuals in it? Would you say it's even a hate crime movie because of the lack of LGBT? Or could you just enjoy it as a fucking movie!
SJW, it's fair for them to (ab)use the system, but you other Assholes aren't allowed!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @09:40PM
Of course there were homosexuals in Star Wars. What did you think the robots were? The gold one, the one who studied languages, was as queer as a wooden nickel, and the other was a fat metal dick on wheels. Which characters were in all the movies? The gay robots and the tall black guy (who turned out in the prequels to be white until he turned away from marriage and started serving the old man) with the big lightsaber and the penis-shaped helmet. Tell me that's not the homosexual agenda in a nutshell.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @10:57PM
Martin wrote a post "Where's the Beef?" [livejournal.com] examining that claim and found no such political bias in the Hugos. But don't take my word for it. Read his post and see if you disagree with his categorization of the politics of the winners of Hugo nominations for the past few years.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 14 2015, @06:21AM
OK, you little tiny penised prick! You had better learn to respect women, or you will never, ever, get laid! Do you HEAR me, dickwad? Yeah, you think Gamergate was about something. But you are wrong, you vomitious pile of unmasculine filth! It is about boys who can never be men, mostly because they are so self-absorbed and narcissistic that introvert does not come close to describing them. Black holes of sexual attractiveness that even AXE cannot redeem. Take your misogyny and shove it up yours, because that is the closest to actual love of another human being you will ever come. Censorship? Please, you are extremely lucky anyone has read your pathetic whining this far.
Love and kisses,
SJW, Level 1, Master Class, Anti-Misogynist Squad 34.
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Wednesday April 15 2015, @08:05AM
Jar Jar Binks isn't homosexual? WHAT!? :O
(I deeply and honestly pity anyone who finds this comment offensive and also wish to congratulate them on surviving so far: damn well done, very impressive!).
Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday April 13 2015, @05:30PM
I don't know anything about Martin or Scalzi personally or politically, and I am of the unpopular opinion that Martin is just milking what could have been an interesting story. As for Scalzi, the only thing I've read by him is "Red Shirts" and it was hilarious. Totally loved it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshirts_(novel) [wikipedia.org]
Given your condemnation of Scalzi, I should check out some other things he's written.
(Score: 1) by dboz87 on Thursday April 16 2015, @08:11PM
Really? I thought that was pretty much the accepted view on Martin.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @06:24PM
Seriously, people. There are literally dozens of *fanfic* writers whose works are all-around better than his.
When his handiwork got in effect declared comparable to Martin, Bujold, Heinlein etc. - that was beyond hilarious.
Whatever happens to Hugo after that - I say good riddance.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 14 2015, @01:04AM
Pot...meet kettle.
(Score: 2) by naubol on Tuesday April 14 2015, @04:23PM
Beat that gorilla chest harder!
(Score: 3, Funny) by takyon on Monday April 13 2015, @12:30PM
George R. R. Bookmark.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday April 13 2015, @12:31PM
Who would have thunk that an award giving out to literature would be criticized for favoring "literary" works? To translate the same argument to another medium, they're saying, in essence, that it was so unfair that those Oscar people preferred Ben Hur over The Wasp Woman and Plan 9 from Outer Space.
As far as preferring left-wing works, that's nonsense too, unless I imagined the part where they handed out multiple Hugos to Heinlein. What appears to have actually happened is that some no-name author decided that the reason his works weren't given lots of attention was because there was some sort of grand conspiracy to keep him down due to his books' political views. But his books didn't sell well and weren't well received by critics, which creates an alternate theory as to why they didn't get much attention: Bad writing.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 5, Disagree) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday April 13 2015, @12:40PM
Watch the twitter streams of the authors who're pissed off. They leave zero doubt that it is because of their social justice politics.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @12:47PM
Eye of the beholder
(Score: 3, Flamebait) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday April 13 2015, @12:56PM
Really not. They'll outright say so minus the phrase "social justice" if you watch a while. They're not remotely ashamed to say that they think their politics should rule the genre and other views should be censored.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @01:17PM
I'm referring to the "pissed off"
To an unacknowledged collectivist like yourself anyone challenging the status quo is pissed off.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday April 13 2015, @01:47PM
Oh, you were being pedantic. Roger that.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @01:51PM
Nope, I was criticising your argument's foundations of minimization.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by snick on Monday April 13 2015, @01:33PM
It always amazes me how some folks equate criticism with censorship.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday April 13 2015, @01:46PM
It's all about the context. In the context of an award, it is absolutely censorship to refuse to consider those of beliefs that don't fit your narrative of how things should be.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @01:53PM
> In the context of an award, it is absolutely censorship to refuse to consider those of
> beliefs that don't fit your narrative of how things should be.
Fatal irony overload alert!
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday April 13 2015, @09:56PM
> In the context of an award, it is absolutely censorship to refuse to consider those of
> beliefs that don't fit your narrative of how things should be.
Fatal irony overload alert!
Wow, just wow! I stand in awe of the alerter! Will Buzz get the message? Will understanding come to the Sad Puppies who are much put upon? Stay tuned for breaking news! (Fatal Irony Overload, heh heh, we should be so lucky!)
(Score: 5, Touché) by snick on Monday April 13 2015, @02:03PM
Sorry. You seem to have confused censorship with butthurt.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @12:57PM
So they are discriminating against people just because they lack writing skills! That's unacceptable! I mean, does having better writing skills make you a better human? Surely not! So how dare they to give prizes only to people with writing skills!
Oh, and BTW, I want a Nobel prize for literature for this post! The post may not meet high literary standards, but hey, don't discriminate!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tadas on Monday April 13 2015, @05:35PM
Oh, and BTW, I want a Nobel prize for literature for this post! The post may not meet high literary standards, but hey, don't discriminate!
No, but I will nominate you for the Roman Hruska award. In 1970, Richard Nixon nominated someone named G. Harold Carswell for the Supreme Court. The nomination was ultimately rejected on the grounds that Carswell was a mediocre nominee. In Carswell's defense, Seantor Roman Hruska, a Republican from Nebraska went on record saying:
Even if he were mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren't they, and a little chance? We can't have all Brandeises, Frankfurters and Cardozos.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Monday April 13 2015, @01:11PM
unless I imagined the part where they handed out multiple Hugos to Heinlein.
Minor correction:
unless I imagined the part where they handed out multiple Hugos to Heinlein around half a century ago.
Unless I missed something in last years award ceremony or something.
Its interesting to consider if anyone who voted for "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" from fifty yrs ago voted last year, and if so, how big or relevant of a voting block that cohort from '66 is today in '15. My guess would be they're a rounding error. So Heinlein is on topic for a historical retrospective of politics in sci fi half a century ago, but not relevant to a discussion of politics in sci fi (or what passes for sci fi) in 2015.
I don't disagree with you overall, its just bad form as a type of argument along the lines of claiming a direct and continuous line of descent from Emperor Diocletian to contemporary 2015 Italian economic monetary policy, when in reality there's no continuity or much of a relationship at all.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday April 13 2015, @02:07PM
In the world of sci-fi literature, there's definitely continuity: It's not like Heinlein stopped being listened to a half-a-century ago, and there are people like Harlan Ellison who have been around since the very first Hugo was handed out. There has been no major revolts that replaced all the leadership in the field. Many of those writing today were inspired or even mentored by those writing 50 years ago. So I think it's quite relevant that conservative writers have historically gotten noticed and awarded for their work. And it's also extremely important to notice that the publishers, markets and critics don't tend to punish writers today for conservative viewpoints, but also do not like the work of the authors pushing "Sad Puppies".
In some ways, I think this reveals interesting instincts on the part of these authors. "Hey, my stories aren't winning the big awards. Is it because (a) my stuff is a bit hacky and boring, or (b) there's a giant liberal conspiracy to prevent my obviously deserving works from winning?"
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Vanderhoth on Monday April 13 2015, @03:00PM
The "liberal conspiracy" thing is a little over the top. If someone gets in a position in a publishing company where they can make a decision to publish people based on political leaning, that's not a conspiracy, it's just someone with power being an asshole.
Women not being hired in IT because they're women isn't a conspiracy, in some cases it's because they aren't as skilled as other candidates, in other cases it could be managers being assholes, but it's not a "patriarchal conspiracy" to keep women out of the industry.
After I started looking into the sad puppies thing, I read several blogs by authors that were "victims" of not having the right political views. And many are too afraid to say so because in this age having the wrong political views gets you labelled as the nastiest of things and attacked by crazies left and right. I recommend looking up "Requires Hate", "Something Awful" or "Feminist Frequency" to see what it is some of these crazies do when people disagree with them.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 1) by Bacon Bits on Monday April 13 2015, @03:33PM
To me it sounds like Martin is complaining that Sci-Fi novels that get Hugo awards tend to be http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_science_fiction [wikipedia.org]social science fiction instead of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_opera [wikipedia.org]space operas. Personally, I tend to prefer my sci-fi with some social commentary. I like Roddenberry more than Abrams. If I want something without such a tone, I tend to read fantasy instead like Martin's own series.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday April 13 2015, @04:05PM
Martin is not complaining about who's getting the awards, he's complaining about the self-proclaimed "Sad Puppies" who are trying to change who's getting the award away from social sci-fi. He'd likely agree with your preference for, say, Ursula LeGuin over Keven Anderson.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Tuesday April 14 2015, @05:16AM
Actually look at their forums, the ones that vote today? Wouldn't have given Heinlein shit because he is a "fascist misogynist". That is why you really can't compare the past with the last 10 years as the SJW really didn't exist back then. If you would like to know more about the rise of the SJW please enjoy this instructional video [youtube.com] that explains 1.- What an SJW is, 2.- Where they came from, and 3.- How they act once they get into a group, complete with examples.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday April 14 2015, @10:50AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Hairyfeet on Tuesday April 14 2015, @09:18PM
If you wouldn't vote for him because you think somebody else is better? THAT is a fair and honest opinion that SHOULD come into play when you are voting for an award, but look at my post again, they would insure that he would not win NOT because they thought somebody else was better but instead they would make sure nothing he wrote had a chance because he refused to parrot radical left Marxist politics and grovel and beg forgiveness for being born a white male.
Dude I WISH I was making this up, I wish this was an exaggeration...its not, its REALLY fucking not. When Gamergate came out I first thought "Oh its one side trying to demonize the other, I bet if I actually talk to them rationally both sides have good and bad points"...nope, boy was I fucking wrong. Please do NOT take my word for it, go to some of the places that SJWs hang out like Jezebel or Twitter with gamerghazi and actually try to rationally talk to these people. If you are white? You sir are a piece of shit who should be groveling before everyone who isn't for having male privilege, if you are a man? You are a rape apologist, unless you are black in which case you rank high on the "oppression scale" and can do no wrong because no matter what you do its because of your "historic oppression" and therefor should be forgiven. They had a white male actually write a whole article (and you are about to see why we call white male SJWs "beta males" because of how pathetic they view themselves) about how the laws concerning hate crimes should be gotten rid of, sounds reasonable, right? Nope he said that "with a heavy heart I say we should get rid of hate crime laws because a black man has been charged with a hate crime and the laws as written don't even take into account historical oppression!"...I swear to God on my mother's life those were his EXACT fucking words!
So nobody is arguing they shouldn't try to pick the one who wrote the best story....but that isn't what is happening, unless you consider "best" based on how much it pushes radical left wing feminist Marxist politics. As the one who started Sad Puppies pointed out you could place something like an Asimov or Bradbury in the Hugo Awards now and they would lose to something barely above the level of fanfic because it had a lesbian transsexual robot in it, or was filled with speeches about how whites and males were garbage. Again PLEASE don't take my word for it, I know many who have not had an actual dialog with a real SJW find this hard to believe, but go to one of their forums and talk to them directly and see how quickly you realize "these people are fucking batshit". They are racist, sexist, spew nothing but bile and hatred, narcissist as hell, you spend even a single hour talking to the SJWs and you will soon not be able to come up with a single kind word because they take even the most generic idea and radicalize the fuck out of it.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 14 2015, @10:39PM
parrot radical left Marxist politics
There are Marxist parrots? And radical ones, at that? It is worse than anyone imagined. Why are the Marxist parrots picking on the Sad Puppies, and what happened to the Happy Kittens?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @12:38PM
(Feel free to 'Betteridge' the subject line and move on)
Why do awards (any awards, be they for books,music, films, tv, games, or anything else) matter these days? They used to be useful for raising the awareness of a work and promoting it, but the internet has made the relevant channels so fragmented that they aren't relevant in the slightest. Awards are always subjective and reflect the opinions of the voting members (or the way they wish to represent themselves).
Swings between left and right are fairly frequent in society and awards are no different in this - one decade social commentary wrapped in spaceships may dominate, the next might be support for imperialism dressed as fighting aliens who threaten our livelihood or have resources that we need.
If a group wants an award that always reflects a particular political point of view, then fine, set one up. Otherwise accept that as the prevailing mood changes so will what people perceive as award worthy.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Monday April 13 2015, @01:02PM
If a group wants an award that always reflects a particular political point of view, then fine, set one up. Otherwise accept that as the prevailing mood changes so will what people perceive as award worthy.
The problem with this is that what happened with the Hugos isn't, according to what I've read about it from other sources, an example of the "prevailing mood" changing. It's an example of ballot-box stuffing, just like Microsoft did with the ISO when they pushed through OOXML: the process was hijacked. Basically, the Hugo awards are decided by all the people who pony up some cash ($40 I think) to become a "member". Traditionally, only a certain number of people would bother to do this, people who were really serious about SF. But this time, some group got together a bunch of money and like-minded people, and en masse purchased memberships and then voted as a bloc. I'm sorry, but when a vocal minority decides to pipe up and shout down everyone else, that doesn't indicate a "prevailing mood change".
Of course, it' s not proof the prevailing mood hasn't changed either, but when I see some group gang up like that and take a coordinated action, that makes me think this group actually represents the opposite of the prevailing mood, or else why did they need to work this way?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by VLM on Monday April 13 2015, @01:26PM
or else why did they need to work this way?
In the short term, affirmative action quotas. If the old boys club doesn't like new ideas (like hiring employees other than white men such as the existing old boys club members, or in this specific case, sending awards only to authors of SJW political leanings) then historically old boys clubs have been broken up more or less by this kind of technique.
In the medium term, there's no such thing as bad PR. Better in the news as the "bad boys" than not in the news at all. Is there anyone who's not better off WRT PR implications in this whole discussion, on either side? Perhaps both sides cooperate more than you'd think such that all sides benefit? Aside from the binary political sides, perhaps next year, the UAW buys 1M memberships to push their political bias, I'm not sure the award organizers are going to complain too loudly about the additional $40M of funds. I'm not sure what sci fi themed union membership propaganda would look like, although it probably wouldn't look very good.
In the long run encouraging political propaganda is a loss for the readers, because its traditionally very bad literature and the opposite of timeless, resulting in a net long term loss to sci fi and maybe a net long term gain to fantasy or alt hist or brony slash fic or whatever alternatives.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by khallow on Monday April 13 2015, @01:30PM
But this time, some group got together a bunch of money and like-minded people, and en masse purchased memberships and then voted as a bloc. I'm sorry, but when a vocal minority decides to pipe up and shout down everyone else, that doesn't indicate a "prevailing mood change".
The process was hijacked some time ago. "Serious SF" made way for what the Sad Puppies have been calling "check the boxes", literature that is considered better when it checks off various social justice grievances than the quality of its story.
Of course, it' s not proof the prevailing mood hasn't changed either, but when I see some group gang up like that and take a coordinated action, that makes me think this group actually represents the opposite of the prevailing mood, or else why did they need to work this way?
Because someone else gamed the system first.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @01:43PM
> Because someone else gamed the system first.
That's a weird definition of "gamed first."
Was there some "happy kittens" group organizing ballot stuffing campaigns in previous years?
Or was it simply the continuing natural course of events?
(Score: 5, Informative) by Vanderhoth on Monday April 13 2015, @02:10PM
Actually yeah, someone else was gaming the system first. Sad Puppies was the first group to admit publicly they were doing it and only did so, basically, on a dare. The person that did SP1 did so because he pointed out others were creating and submitting slates for nominations, Scalzi most notably. When he pointed this out he was told there was nothing wrong with it, so he started SP1, which had some success. SP2 was much more successful and SP3 had all of their nominations made.
Basically people, like me, lost interests in the Hugos years ago. The books winning just weren't that great, IMHO. I believe the reason was because books weren't winning on merit, they were winning because some authors started doing basically what SP is doing. The guy who did SP1 said he actually had no intention of continuing the campaign, he just did it to demonstrate that it was and could be done. He did SP1 & SP2, someone else has taken over for SP3, then the media and some high profile people started blaming it on GamerGate, which is how I heard about it.
I follow GamerGate very closely and hadn't even heard mention of SP until people started accusing it, of using GamerGate, to rigging the Hugos. There were only 200 more people voting in for nominations this year over last year. If GamerGate had been involved it would have been closer to 2,000. We have no problem raising $2,000 in a weekend for charities and other projects (we're close to $200,000 in total donations, here are just a few of the things we've done http://gamergate.me/charity/), [gamergate.me] or trending whatever tags we want on Twitter as a collective (last Thursday we did #OpEarthQuake and in a couple hours trended #AreYouBlocked world wide) and KotakuInAction has some 32,000 subscribers.
Had GamerGate been involved it would have decimated the "SJW", a term I really hate using. As it happens now the "SJW" authors are now openly buying votes spending up to $2,800 for memberships to hand out to people that will vote "no award" for them in hopes none of the nominations win an award, I have a link somewhere to a tweet about it. If I have time to go looking, I'll come back and post it.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @02:17PM
So your argument is that a secret group was ballot stuffing and your proof of that is????
(Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Monday April 13 2015, @02:25PM
It wasn't a secret group, I have you the name of one of the people that was participating in it. 8^)
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @02:41PM
A group of one person?
Puhlease. All you are doing is confirming the perception of these sad puppies as nutjobs.
(Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Monday April 13 2015, @03:05PM
A group only needs one person to lead it.
I gave you a name, you can look them up yourself to see the kind of crazy they are. I'm not on any side here, I don't vote in the Hugo's nor intend to, but after doing the research it's pretty obvious all the things the "nutjobs" in sad puppies were saying are in fact true. The system can be gamed, and it has been for sometime now.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @03:36PM
Ah, the old "go google it and prove my point for me" cop-out.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @04:17PM
the classic child troll response, do it for me, I'm too much of a lazy sack of shit to do it myself...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @10:46PM
Hey, I'm not the one making extraordinary claims.
I don't believe him and apparently he's only interested in the self-pleasure of ranting rather than the effort of convincing.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Oakenshield on Monday April 13 2015, @03:46PM
I admit I was oblivious to the whole thing until the story first hit ARS. I did some research as well and there was some batshit crazy stuff coming from the people pissed off by the Sad Puppies. It was sad, but it did tend to confirm that what they were accusing was true. I was astonished by the childish vitriol coming from (what I assume) were adults.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday April 13 2015, @03:54PM
I've been an adult for over two decades now, and one thing I've noticed is that so-called adults in this society, regardless of age, are no more mature than most teenagers.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Vanderhoth on Monday April 13 2015, @04:07PM
It's because the only ones concerned with "maturity" when it comes to arts and entertainment are "children". Saying someone HAS to be mature is what parents use to convince their children they're not behaving properly. Unfortunately some of those children grew up and realized it's a great way to control the behavior of others they don't like. And if you can't use maturity against someone, call them "sexist", "racists", "homophobic", "trasphobic", "misogynistic" (bonus if they're women say they have "internalized misogyny", if they're minorities they've "internalized racism") then clam your side can't be. "Oh, you can't be sexists against a man. Sexism is privilege + power, women don't have privilege or power therefore can't be sexist"
If someone out wits you in a conversation mock and belittle them, bring your friends or use Anonymous status to make it seem like a legion of people agree with you.
The mental gymnastic I've read over the last eight months is mind boggling.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @04:16PM
> And if you can't use maturity against someone, call them "sexist", "racists", "homophobic", "trasphobic", "misogynistic"
It is interesting that your totally unbiased analysis of events and culpability just happens to line up exactly with your biases.
No coincidence at all.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Yog-Yogguth on Wednesday April 15 2015, @08:56AM
Much more interesting that you mod up your own shoddy comments through multiple accounts (you're not exactly subtle). You're bound to keep it up so the site will figure out a way to stop it (if they haven't already for the next update).
I guess this might be the end of moderation capabilities for Tor and VPN users, too bad for the ones who managed to behave.
Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @04:14PM
I am having a hard time understanding how vitriol, no matter how vitriolic, is proof of a secret group that existed beforehand.
Just because people are angry and pissed off doesn't make them conspirators, especially prior conspirators.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Oakenshield on Monday April 13 2015, @04:50PM
The point was that the "Sad Puppies" opponents were openly declaring dedication to vote solely based upon politics. The accusations from "Sad Puppy" supporters were that the process had been in fact previously been hijacked by political factions within the membership. That is, that winners were chosen based upon alignment to the political leanings of the membership instead of merit. The Sad Puppies' slate was (allegedly) chosen without regard to politics.
(Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Monday April 13 2015, @05:14PM
This is supposedly true for this year. The guy that ran SP1 & SP2 admitted he has a conservative leaning. This year the slate was chosen by different people without consideration to politics, some authors that strongly disagreed with SP asked to have their names dropped from the slate and some have turned down nominations. I read one blog by an author who speculates that might be more because other authors are afraid they will be labelled as conservatives for not rejecting the nominations and therefore will be shunned by publishers and attacked by "SJW", I hate that term, in the community... or outside of it. Supposedly one of the defining factors of an "SJW" is they don't care about the communities or fandoms. They get involved in everything for no other reason then to get social justice even if they'd never consume the product themselves, before or after.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @09:26PM
It's that idea that they can/should/will lead you to a better tomorrow or shame you into non-existence for not sharing their vision sort of thing...
You know, like Hitler...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @10:57PM
Supposedly one of the defining factors of an "SJW" is they don't care about the communities or fandoms. They get involved in everything for no other reason then to get social justice even if they'd never consume the product themselves, before or after.
So you disagree with Buzz calling Martin and Scalzi SJWs? [soylentnews.org]
And what do you call all the people who signed up to be hugo voters for the first time ever in order to vote for the SP slate of 'anti-SJW' titles?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @10:52PM
> The point was that the "Sad Puppies" opponents were openly declaring dedication to vote solely based upon politics.
Yes AFTER WITNESSING SP DOING IT FIRST.
You and vander are both pushing circular logic - "someone else was gaming the system first." But all the 'proof' of that is (a) one guy (Scalzi) lobbying for his own stories and (b) a bunch of people angrily vowing to do to SP what SP did first.
Time travel is not real, SP doesn't get to blame their prior actions on what people will do in the future.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Oakenshield on Tuesday April 14 2015, @02:18PM
I realize I am debating a AC and it is pointless, but... SP was reactionary. This was not something that was pulled out of their rectums for the Lulz. It was openly stated it was a response to the (at least) appearance of impropriety of selections by political affiliation. It was also stated that SP's slate was agnostic to politics, and based upon (their opinions of) merit. SP opponents openly stated that their goal was to thwart this and vote based upon political lines which is precisely what the SP supporters claimed that they had done in the past. It is difficult to believe that voting by political affiliation did not exist prior to SP, while those accused freely admit to intentions to do so in the future and while past winners look suspiciously like politics were involved.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 14 2015, @03:16AM
The proof is here (for context, N K Jemisin is a fantasy writer known for her incendiary speeches against white people, don't take my word for it if you don't believe it, read her Wiscon 38 Guest of Honor Speech. But anyway, here's the proof you were asking for):
nkjemisin.com/2015/04/not-the-affirmative-action-you-meant-not-the-history-youre-making/
Not in the post itself, but in the comments. One of the site visitors says that people are openly talking about Affirmative Action and deliberately nominating books by people of color, with the ‘by POC’ coming first before any other consideration, and N K Jemisin agrees that it’s true.
This is not what really bothers me, though. Positive discrimination, is not something really awful like normal discrimination, although I still don’t think it should take place in a literary award. But what bothers me is the exclusion, the violent rhetoric and the cultural war against a certain part of the population. Look, I don’t care if you get together with your online friends to vote only for writers with a certain skin color. Whatever floats your boat. I just want to be treated decently, and not like a rabid dog.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 14 2015, @06:39AM
incendiary speeches against white people
OMG! Lookit dat! Incinderary speeches! Why, that is almost as bad as having a cross burning on you lawn 'cause you got uppity! Mercy on these white people! They must be so afraid! I hope no one lynches them for being such racist assholes!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @03:03PM
Do you have a reference for the claim of slates other than Sad/Rapid Puppies? I've seen claims that Scalzi proposed a slate... backed up by a link to a blog post that involves no such thing. Scalzi has posted which of his own works were eligible and had threads on his blog the past few years with the rule that creators could list eligible works, but forbid recommending other people's works. My understanding is that even this was considered uncouth a few years ago but is fairly common now, and is not at all the same thing as recommending an entire slate.
(Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Monday April 13 2015, @03:12PM
Unfortunately I don't have any links at the moment on this machine. I'm also not sure if the links I do have don't in some roundabout way come from sad puppies, most are from blogs.
I do have this link which is Harlan Ellison talking about the issue a number of years ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFR9TYxAVZQ [youtube.com]
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @03:23PM
So, if you believe Ellison, one author lobbied for their own story ... and that's basically the same thing as a secret cabal voting on ideology rather than 'quality.'
That is not nutty at all.
(Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Monday April 13 2015, @03:46PM
It's not a secret cabal 8^)
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @04:21PM
Couldn't you just look at the previous winners over the last decade to see or not if an unnatural pattern has emerged?
Let me guess, that would require effort though, something you likely lack.
And to answer your response ahead of time, I actually don't care about these awards, but I do care about pointing out your flaws.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by curunir_wolf on Monday April 13 2015, @05:54PM
Not specifically about slating, but I found this interesting, from a writer who dealt with ostracizing due to "unapproved opinion". From Sarah A. Hoyt [accordingtohoyt.com].
I am a crackpot
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Reziac on Tuesday April 14 2015, @03:02AM
I don't think the person you mention is truly trying to buy votes; I think she honestly feels that if more people vote, things will be more fair. Some of the others who've chimed in may well be eyeing "preferred voters", tho, and it may wind up being de facto purchased votes because of the self-selecting that happens with normal blog reading -- the people going to those blogs where they'll hear about the donated memberships also tend to be anti-SP to start with. At least she's putting them all in a hat and doing random drawings, rather than cherrypicking candidates.
And of course the SPs/RPs can't perform the same generosity (tho several could well afford to) or it would immediately be decried as buying votes.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday April 14 2015, @12:50AM
Was there some "happy kittens" group organizing ballot stuffing campaigns in previous years?
I guess you'll have to look [monsterhunternation.com]. But the noise over the "Sad Puppies" campaigns combined with coordinated media attacks doesn't strike me as the work of people who just happen to be fans.
(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"?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by khallow on Monday April 13 2015, @01:12PM
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Vanderhoth on Monday April 13 2015, @02:33PM
All my mod points to you if I could. It's EXACTLY the same thing.
"Wait a second, why is this journalists writing about someone he has a relationship with and promoting a game. Shouldn't he disclose that kind of thing?" (which later it turned out he was thanked in the games credits. So he was promoting his own game https://archive.today/5IBg1) [archive.today]
"Why do you have a problem with female developers?"
"I don't, I have a problem with the journalists, but she's not exactly a nice person either. She attacked a message board for depressed suicidal virgins to drum up interest in her game (Depression Quest, could not be more ironic) also tanked The Fine Young Capitalistic campaign, by calling them transphobic and sicking her followers on them to get women in to game development in an effort to have her own version of it"
"Your just a cis-white-male shitslinging misogynerd" (10+ articles come out on all the gaming media sites the proclaiming the end of the gamer identity calling gamers entitled cis-white-males and saying they don't have to be the audience for THE GAMING INDUSTRY)
... Welcome to GamerGate
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @02:43PM
Its about ethics in scifi journalism.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Vanderhoth on Monday April 13 2015, @03:22PM
It's about ethics in journalism, period.
When you start following journalists and reading their twitter feeds, seeing who they're connected to, who and what they're promoting it's quite clear they're push specific politics and narratives. They care about clicks and pandering to their audiences, not the truth. They will omit facts and out right lie to push their own views and drum up outrage. I see comments all the time on Slashdot and Soylent where people know there's just something not right with a specific article. People can tell when things don't add up. They might not know what it is, but they know there's something.
The problem is the only information we have to go on is that of the people accused of acting in unethical ways, who are also the people that are suppose to be calling that behavior out.
"Kotaku investigated Kotaku and found Kotaku isn't responsible for any wrong doings Kotaku is accused of" - Kotaku
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @03:25PM
> It's about ethics in journalism, period.
Wooosh!
> "Kotaku investigated Kotaku and found Kotaku isn't responsible for any wrong doings Kotaku is accused of" - Kotaku
No. "Kotaku investigated Kotaku and here is what we found which we think is no big deal." And they weren't a big deal.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Vanderhoth on Monday April 13 2015, @03:43PM
There's no "Woosh" the meme didn't go over my head, I completely understand the mockery and that people that use it are hypocrites and small people who are more bigoted than any accusations leveled at anyone that just wanted to talk about how journalists are using their privilege to push their personal views / friends / products without disclosures.
It also seems rather obvious journalists accused of wrong doings are going to play the "we think it isn't a big deal" card. OF COURSE it's not a big deal to them otherwise they wouldn't have used their positions for personal advantage in the first place. All the media had to do was, "Yeah, sorry we messed up. We'll try harder to disclose personal relationships and professional connections in the future", instead they went with, "DIE YOU SHITLORD SCUM!! HOW DARE YOU ACCUSE US OF ACTING IN AN UNETHICAL WAY!! MISOGYNIST! RAPIST! SEXISTS!! STOP PUSHING WOMEN OUT OF THE INDUSTRY!! BOYCOTT THIS FEMALE DEV FOR NOT AGREEING WITH US!! GAMERS AREN'T OUR AUDIENCE!!"
Yeah, that worked out real well for them
Several sites have updated ethical policies, some of the worst offending journalist were let go, or shuffled to other publications, GameJournoPro was exposed, blacklisting has been uncovered, journalists and IGF judges invested in companies they voted to win IGF awards have been exposed. It's been quite a ride. ^_^
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 14 2015, @11:14AM
I thought $PRODUCT journalism was all about accepting money from publishers of the very products being reviewed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @04:00PM
It's about #GG-style entitlement.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday April 14 2015, @06:54AM
Excuse me?
The nonsensical racism/sexism libel of anyone who even mildly disagrees,
Racism and sexism are not mild disagreements, they are crimes. Libel is the least of your problem, since everywhere outside of England truth is an absolute defense. If I call you a racist because you are one, there is no libel at all, even if you yourself, personally, in your own little cocoon of racism, could not detect it. This is not a matter of disagreement, it is not a "difference of opinion", it is some people having criminal intent, in violation of the International Declaration of Human Rights. Expect someone, sooner or later, to come after you, just like they did for the Nazis who escaped to South America. The Banality of Evil: it is a book. You should read it. If you can read books.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Tuesday April 14 2015, @08:36AM
Racism and sexism are not mild disagreements, they are crimes.
Libel is a crime. Racism and sexism may or may not be, depending on the jurisdiction and if/where the behavior manifests. Merely, being accused of such things in the writing of science fiction is obviously not a crime in most of the developed world. If such behavior actually did occur during a business's hiring practices or the exclusion of people from public activities, it might be a crime or the basis of a civil lawsuit (which is not a crime, but is a punishable offense).
If I call you a racist because you are one, there is no libel at all, even if you yourself, personally, in your own little cocoon of racism, could not detect it.
Unless, it's not true. Truth is an absolute defense, only if it is true. One of the things that notable here is a callous disregard for truth. For example, the Sad Puppies were accused of presenting a group of candidates that weren't diverse in the usual multicultural sense. This accusation was trivial to rebut, indicating that the accusers didn't spend even a little time fact-checking.
This is not a matter of disagreement, it is not a "difference of opinion", it is some people having criminal intent, in violation of the International Declaration of Human Rights.
Bullshit for two obvious reasons. First, the International Declaration of Human Rights is an intent to curb government not private behavior and actions. It was never intended to apply to individual people. Second, it's not an actual law, but rather an agreement. Few individuals have explicitly agreed to the agreement and nobody, government or otherwise has agreed to allow that statement to apply to their actions with legal force.
I'll note here that it also is terrible law, due to the various rights to have stuff, but not have the right to have someone provide that stuff. For example, I have supposed rights to a nation, social security, paid lots of money ("just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection"), "special care and assistance" if I'm a mother, free education, and "entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized" (world tyranny, here's yet another flimsy pretext for your creation).
Expect someone, sooner or later, to come after you, just like they did for the Nazis who escaped to South America.
Fuck you. When are you going to care about justice and actual problems rather than engage in toothless witch hunting?
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Wednesday April 15 2015, @10:51AM
Okay I'm still stupid enough to throw myself at the windmills. Here I go. I bet it will be another attempt in vain and you'll probably end up hating me and my immense arrogance, so be it, I think this is important enough to be stupid and arrogant. It's not much in the way of hand-holding either but it can be an entryway to confronting oneself (for me too).
No I'm sorry on your behalf (and disappointed) but you're not excused in this case, your peers brought this upon yourselves (and everyone else) as they successfully made racism and sexism worthless words and badges of honor both by your own metrics (inverted) and others. You made everything worse rather than better, you increased the crimes and most of it is still hidden. Stuff like the topic of TFA is nothing compared to what's coming over the hill. That's your achievement, your monster child, and you can't disown it just because you were too ignorant to see it coming. That kind of excuse didn't work in the Nuremberg trials either. So please learn, it really doesn't have to be that way. You might for example think of yourself as anti-racist and anti-xenophobic when you support immigration but in practical terms you are functioning as a slave trader (both for sex and profit) while you're destroying the working class or even disturbing the ecology of societies that were heading towards ecological equilibrium (falling birthrates in industrialized populations) and doing relative population replacement on scales that already now trend towards genocide (look at immigration birthrates and don't feign stupidity). You are funding the people and things you claim to oppose and you've been doing it on a massive scale. It doesn't really matter if you understand or agree because the result will be what it will be either way unless you stop. It doesn't matter what ideology you confess to or what ideals you spout. Reality doesn't care about intent.
You/your peers still don't understand it but it happened the moment you started to shut people down because you only wanted to listen to and expand the influence of your private bubble of approved opinion. It is exactly the same no holds barred control freak nonsense the NSA etc. have brainfucked themselves with. There is a lot more coming your ways in this regard and hopefully it stops with your lot being a bit wiser about those flaws of yours. No I should say it even though I like you: not really flaws but purely fascist methodology straight out of Nazism and Soviet communism. You see it really doesn't help what your aims are, who or what you fight, because it's a direct result of choice of methods. No different to how torture is totally useless beyond the most trivial of trivial cases and highly detrimental even in those (was it Chicago that just now started the long process of trying to pay the bill for torture committed locally in the seventies? How ironic considering their current mayor: one of yours whether you like it or not or whether you realize it or not).
George Orwell/Eric Blair tried to make everybody understand it a long time ago (and others far earlier than him), this time it's not 1984 (although it's really part of the same issue and deeply connected) but Animal Farm and you took the role of the pigs and most of you seem to still be stuck on that.
You did not/do not understand that the evils you've read about are the evils you represent. Keep pushing and the slaves, your slaves, will take revenge upon you soon enough when stuck between a rock and a hard place (not that it will solve anything or break the cycle of idiocy), most of them know by first hand experience how wrong you and yours are and have been and they utterly despise your words much more than I do (and I despise your words as exemplified in the comment I'm replying to a lot), the rest want to kill you for other reasons (even though you're funding them) and the only exception in that case is if you submit to them as a few have done already. As long as these are the only alternatives we're all destined to lose.
You can insist and reply with the same old clichés but it changes nothing. You're both lucky and unlucky it has gone as far as it has: lucky to still be alive, unlucky to have kept on building up resentment to ever greater heights. It doesn't take much in the brains department to realize that it can't go on forever.
The solution? Try to understand what those you declare racists, sexists and whatnot have been and still are trying to tell you. Isn't this post plain English? Is there anything you find obfuscated or occluded? Is it too hard to understand the quantities? Have you ever made any effort at all to understand or play devils advocate against your own preconceptions? Have you even identified your assumptions? Yeah it is a lot of work when you're catching up thirty or forty years but it's all out there on the net in multiple variations and formats from a lot of different people just waiting for you to connect (or discard as is also required) the dots on your own.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday April 15 2015, @11:23PM
Yog! Thank you for the rational reply! Totally unexpected, I assure you. And of course you are totally wrong, even though I agree with almost everything you say.
Okay I'm still stupid enough to throw myself at the windmills. Here I go. I bet it will be another attempt in vain and you'll probably end up hating me and my immense arrogance, so be it, I think this is important enough to be stupid and arrogant.
Hate's got nothing to do with it. I don't hate you, and I would hope the non-hate is mutual. And I would not call your response arrogant at all.
your peers brought this upon yourselves (and everyone else) as they successfully made racism and sexism worthless words and badges of honor both by your own metrics (inverted) and others.
Now here I disagree. What makes you think that anyone has changed the meanings of these terms? I think the only think that has changed it that the behaviors which used to pass (due to far more egregious wrongs) are now being called out. Maybe this is the point: when I say someone is racist, because, for example, they repeatedly use the term "thug" to refer to an African-American victim of police violence, I am not making things up and disagreeing with them about the facts, I see that there is actual racism behind their choice of words. Am I supposed to listen to them about how African-Americans are actually more criminal that white folk, and intellectually inferior, and how slavery was actually good for them? No, you see there is nothing to debate here. I already understand what the racist thinks, but they fail to understand their own position.
while you're destroying the working class or even disturbing the ecology of societies that were heading towards ecological equilibrium (falling birthrates in industrialized populations) and doing relative population replacement on scales that already now trend towards genocide (look at immigration birthrates and don't feign stupidity).
Um, who is doing this? Falling birth rates and immigrants? Genocide? Oh, you are talking about White People! Well, couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of folks! (Sorry, couldn't stop myself.) I do fail to see how it could be Social Justice Warriors that are bringing about injustice here. Usually they are pro-union and pro-ecology. So what are you really saying? Could you be a racist? Wait, this is not an insult or an attempt to stop us talking, it is a serious question. Why would the extinction of the white race be such a bad thing? (On the assumption that in reality there is no such thing as race, beyond a social construct, I mean.)
You/your peers still don't understand it but it happened the moment you started to shut people down because you only wanted to listen to and expand the influence of your private bubble of approved opinion.
See above. Two points: no one is shutting anyone down. People just do not like right wing science fiction, not because it is conservative, but because it is not very good fiction. Second: Free speech does not imply a right to be listened to. Political correctness is not censorship, it is manners. And again, it is not that progressives don't listen to conservatives, it is that they have heard it all before many times and it is wrong, there is nothing more to debate. And it is rude not to accept your loss and try to rig the game instead. Can you see this? The fact that someone does not accept your views, even to the point that they reject them as worthy of discussion, does not mean that they do not understand them. In fact, it is because they understand them that they are rejected. At some point we all have to ask, is it them, or is it me? I am willing to do that. Are you?
The solution? Try to understand what those you declare racists, sexists and whatnot have been and still are trying to tell you.
What are they trying to tell us, beyond the fact that they are racists and sexists? Should not racists and sexists have to try to understand why they are continually called these names? They are not happy, I get that. But I am not so sure about what, other than as Obama put it, "the ground has shifted under their feet."
Is there anything you find obfuscated or occluded?
Now that you mention it, yes. Took me a while to figure out who you were talking about with the genocide thing, and I am still a bit puzzled about who are the slaves (and who you think it is that is responsible and in danger of being slave-revolted--wait, is it a white thing again? Reverse race slavery?) See, it is very difficult for a normal person to decode all the racist jargon and be clear about what is being said. You could try to do better, for the sake of everyone.
Our greatest disagreement, however, is over the prognosis:
You can insist and reply with the same old clichés but it changes nothing. You're both lucky and unlucky it has gone as far as it has: lucky to still be alive, unlucky to have kept on building up resentment to ever greater heights. It doesn't take much in the brains department to realize that it can't go on forever.
Granted, this too shall pass, but as MLKjr said, "the arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice." I think that all the fooforaw over things like GamerGate and the Sad Puppies is the last gasp of a past way of life. The average age of Fox News viewers and the Teabaggers is over seventy. Racists ain't gonna race forever. We have time.
So I am open to a clear explanation of what is going on here. Are you saying the Sad Puppies do have legitimate greivances? Do they need some Social Justice Warriors to help them out? Make the case!
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Thursday April 16 2015, @04:15PM
We do disagree about things.
If I've misattributed the opinions and actions of those I'm talking about to you then I apologize however it really sounds like you're like them. It is hard to communicate clearly, maybe impossible, and I have my share of total failures already on this site, I have to make allowances for the same to others and keep it in mind.
A lot of people love the culture they were brought up in despite both flaws they wish could be corrected and flaws they ignore or don't mind, it's common and natural to most or all cultures. For each individual it usually takes some time and some will find they don't. But for those it applies to because they love it they want the culture to continue to exist in a way they approve of or are at peace with.
I could ask the next thousand people I meet out here in non-US-land and unless I'm freakishly unlucky/lucky none of them would know what ‘Gamergate’ or ‘Soylent News’ or ‘Hugo awards & Sad Puppies’ is about. Those things are just different specific US examples of reactions in order to retain something.
If anyone tries to stop people from loving what they love and protecting what they love they should expect resistance. When social resistance doesn't work you can expect political resistance and if that doesn't work then physical resistance. This is also universal, it goes both ways/in all directions. If you are a local minority it is a losing game dependent on sympathy to win, many minorities has (rightfully) won such sympathy in the various local majorities in the western world and many are now (rightfully) losing it (the sympathy) because they've escalated it further despite winning or otherwise misusing their victory. In some cases it is third parties who claim to be in their support who are losing it on their behalf (e.g. minority sexualities). In some cases and irregardless of opinions people might have not everybody picks up on that. In other cases the distinction is in danger of becoming moot and irrelevant (e.g. islam).
Where I live in northern Europe and as far as I can tell in most of the western world the definitions/use/misuse of “white people” (as well as a lot of other politicized words and phrases) has changed a lot (“white people” and also “white man” which meant exactly the same —man was/is still also short for mankind i.e. all humans and the old word for male no longer used— wasn't even racial originally: it was a class or perhaps a class within another class, something which should make sense if you look at the color of “white” people and realize what is required for people to actually be nearly white in color: no sun and no outdoors work and lots of shade). Some of the changes are for the better (those against actual discrimination) and some of it is bizarre (why stop people from eating delicious “niggerbuns” or black chocolate “gods” and “goddesses”, will a ban on black dildos be next?) and some of it is extremely destructive to everybody like when families are firebombed or when “non-white” politicians are berated for being “uncle Tom's”/“coconuts” or when people are murdered like Pim Fortuyn who was an openly gay Dutch popular/superstar politician (he was murdered by a self-declared “defender” of minorities).
The people that are often called social justice warriors and white knights (the irony) on this site sound entirely identical to the people who call themselves “autonomous left”, anti-fascist/AFA, “blitzers”, anti-racists and so on in my part of the world.
Those actively contribute to the things I mentioned and some of them will openly argue in favor of genocide against “whites” in precisely the same way as the Egyptian muslim brotherhood did: genocide by outbreeding and replacement, at least until physical/violent victory becomes certain.
Like others have pointed out it's very reminiscent of past intolerance championed by the extreme left, only a slight update really.
While the vocal ones are extremely visible they have allegiances that run deep in the political left, for the most part it is unspoken but public examples would be when Swedish Mona Sahlin (a fairly powerful politican on their left) declares that Swedes never had a culture of their own at all and should be grateful that immigrants have one (including all the “tasty” car-bq's and attacks on firefighters and medical personnel) or when the political left hardly makes any attempt to distance themselves from political violence against others (Sweden again, worse than the US).
They're the kind of people who saw no problems with pogroms in the seventies and who apparently still don't see what's wrong with it nor understand why most people were happy and relieved when the people in the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries broke free.
They were slaves to an ideology however the slaves I was talking about are people uprooted from their own societies who are radically different in many big and small ways and transplanted into an entirely different world where they are at immense disadvantage and even more so if they have no pressure to adjust themselves. It can be hard to understand why people thought that would work but at the “elite” level which unfortunately made the decisions and keep making them any differences are marginalized and made exotic: it's easy to get along when you're powerful and rich and free to come and go as you fancy, it's hard to get along if you're raped ten times each day or sprayed with insecticides while working the fields and even harder to forget. Let me find that link [rt.com] for you (RT isn't perfect but at least they try, there's more there). The people who enslave them are usually their own, the people one step up from that (parents & ethnic community) usually immigrated (legally or illegally doesn't make much difference), the people one step up from that call themselves anti-racists, and above that you find the “elite” politicians.
They speak against rape but only when it's rape committed by “white” people. They speak against racism but again only when it's from what they interpret as “white” people or “white” enough or “coconuts” (their word for “white on the inside”). They speak against discrimination against sexual preferences but only if it isn't heterosexuality. They speak against censorship but only if it is against themselves. They speak of protection against job loss but only for the approved. They speak of egalitarian rights but only for their own groups. They speak of job protection but only for their own and actively try to make “enemy whites” unemployed due to “enemy white” political beliefs.
So once again if you actually aren't among those people you do have my apology.
Am I a racist? Yes according to the people who use that word against others. Now I'm not racist enough to start chanting “we're racist and that's the way we like it” while pushing some unfortunate person off the train platform (as someone did not too long ago) but I am racist. So am I racist or am I racist?
Am I a sexist? Absolutely according to the people who use that word against others. Now I'm not sexist enough to keep some unfortunate person hidden and secluded and enslaved as a material object for my own gratification (as someone did not too long ago) but I am sexist. So am I sexist or am I sexist?
The trouble is that people who are called names start to adopt those names and take pride in them. I for one do, and each time someone else is called racist or sexist the natural tendency becomes to identify with them, after all it's the same people who keep calling them and me and just about everyone racist and sexist. Maybe some of those people push people, maybe some of those people run private jails, no way to tell, no way to care, at least not if the people who call them racist or sexist say anything. The word nigger might be a good previous/historical example of the same mechanism in the US. I see it happening to people around me and elsewhere, it's becoming normal, it's becoming accepted, even potential victims are starting to join in such extremes. No I am not talking about racism; I'm talking about racism. You might call them uncle Tom and I might call them Amal Aden but that's not what I was talking about: I was talking about racism.
I tried to make that point by making it hard to communicate, by using those words as they have been redefined.
Am I a minority? Yes I am. There are less than six million “white” people that are part of the same culture as I am on this planet (and none off it!). Why should I be forced to sacrifice anything for much larger cultures that are transplanted into where I was born? Would you save the Native Americans if you could? What about the Aztecs or Mayans?
I would, because I'm racist :)
P.S. already such a long comment that I won't go into detail about how the workers in Europe have been marginalized and worker culture more or less obliterated outside islands of protection, for the most part it was the unions and the labor parties that did it by not only supporting but driving for increased immigration. The UK Labor party has pretty much admitted this publicly, German politicians has declared multiculturalism failed, the Norwegian Labor party has indirectly admitted they did it (Thorbjørn Berntsen has and he should know since he was in the middle of it) although they're so afraid they'll deny it as much as possible (understandable since one of their own —also denied— killed 77 of theirs in retaliation).
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday April 17 2015, @06:44AM
Ah, you could have admitted this earlier!
Where I live in northern Europe
So you have no culture because you are a Dane. I understand this. I have family who are (at least part) Swedish. Of course, at least they are not Norwegian, damn Quislings, not even having their own culture to the point of adopting German Culture?
This is where we part. American racism is based, to a large extent, on people fleeing from racism. America is a nation of immigrants, except for the indigenous people. And even they were fleeing from racism rather shortly, or being shipped off to Mighty Buzzardland by the racist Andrew Jackson. And of course, having fled racism, all those people ended up looking for some one else to return the favor to . But it is, and was, a temporary disfunction. It could not stay that way, because of the liberal basis of the American Revolution. All men (and women) are created equal, and endowed (by their creator, but this is not necessary) with equal rights. Now this is very unEuropean. In fact, it is Anti-European. Europeans are claiming a unique cultural identity? Ha! To the Romans you all were just Barbarians. I wonder why?
The violence you keep referring to is of course silly. It is silly in America as well. If a culture is worthwhile, it will attract others and survive, Culture has nothing to do with race, lineage, blood, or soil. Right, Nazis? The attempt to prevail by violence will succeed about as well as the Sad Puppies attempt to stuff the Hugo Awards. I do hope that Europe can overcome its racist tendencies. I am not optimistic. But you need to realize that everyone comes from somewhere else, and there are no true autochthonous peoples anywhere. I know, I have been around for almost 2400 years, and this same racist stuff comes around on a regular basis. You should think a little on who you really are, and why you are so threatened. And seek peace.
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Friday April 17 2015, @03:34PM
You skip more than a few beats there, I can hear your cognitive dissonance loud and clear just as I've heard it from people like you so many times before.
Windmill? Checked! But it was worth it :)
No; I've only ever been threatened and attacked physically by actual Nazis (individual Nazis and groups of Nazis, and these were real self-confessed Nazis and not the make-believe ones like yours). And since you most likely don't realize it and maybe never will: they love people like you making it easy for them just in the same way as they make it easy for you. On their own they're impotent but with your kind they're not and this as well is mutual between you and Nazis just as it has been all the way back since the 1930ies. World history has already shown the two of you can be beaten even when you get up to speed. You feed off each other and grow but now you have two more allies represented by the “control” freaks and “religious” idiots. And that quartet combination is unfortunately going to be much tougher to get rid of if it is at all possible. That's our dismal future as things stand.
Immigrants and temporary immigrants (and particularly Roma) love me because they recognize what I am/represent near-instantaneously. Treating someone as an equal is not something one can claim as a badge of honor or community award, it is only something one can only do /without effort/ and they see right through bullshit like yours because it's them that have to pay the price for it right away. What I mourn is the total waste of both what is already happening each day and what is to come down the path that's still dominating the future despite a lot of effort to shift the course. As you are you're a testament to the fact that the US is facing exactly the same problem: you proudly represent the reasons for it.
It's not that most people don't get it —they do— it's that their (sensible and cautious) readjustment and actions in total are too slow to succeed. Unless more people like you wake up to the bigger picture and reassess yourself and what is happening around you.
But when you do —as Pim Fortuyn did, as Amal Aden did, as Irshad Manji did at least briefly or halfway before fleeing into US anonymity (can't blame her, she tried), as Christopher Hitchens did, and as many more are poised to be able to do— then you're more awesome than anyone else :)
Bonus points to you for pulling both the race card and the exceptionalism card simultaneously, if you had an NSA lanyard around your neck you would be a complete representation of everything the world hates about the US :D
Well at least you're more fun than most who espouse similar views to yours. I'll continue to enjoy your comments and occasionally mod you up.
Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday April 13 2015, @01:16PM
Edit the Wikipedia article [wikipedia.org].
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by wisnoskij on Monday April 13 2015, @01:45PM
Any award decided by a public vote is bull shit anyways. Because I can guarantees you that 99.9% of the voters did not read more than 1% of the nominees. So they just vote for the one book they happened to read; They have no idea which is the best novel. I am huge into the adventure game scene. I spend most of my time reviewing and playing adventure games. And I cannot get more than 10% of the years adventure games in, so even I do not vote for the Aggies (adventure game specific award).
That said, from what I sort of gather voting is not even open to the wide public. It is something like people who purchased tickets last year. So it is not like these people convinced 4chan to vote. They campaigned like every other author/interest group to have their favorite book (and probably the onyl book they read) win.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @03:12PM
The Hugos are a bit of an odd contest in that they are a public vote and on top of that only a very small number of people vote (I think about 1000 or so people cast nominating ballots and they tend to be spread out enough that a couple hundred votes gets a nomination). As you say, any public vote has questionable value, but the Hugos are fairly highy regarded anyway with the Nebulas (voted on by a panel of published sci-fi authors) as a balance. Do notemthat anyone who paid $40 for a supporting membership to this or last year's WorldCon was eligible to nominate. Sad/Rapid Puppies had to convince people to pay that $40, but they weren't limited to people who had done so before their campaign (although this is their third such campaign, just much more successful than their previous ones).
(Score: 2) by naubol on Monday April 13 2015, @04:32PM
Things that seem to suggest you're wrong.
1) Publishers seem to believe the award sells more copies.
2) Authors seem to believe that the recognition helps their careers.
3) The recipients of the awards seem to be significantly better than average material, for the most part. IE, as a reader, the material seems to be at least better than random selection, if not much better.
(Score: 1) by wisnoskij on Monday April 13 2015, @08:02PM
1) Obviously a win or even a nomination will get you a bigger and more prominent section of the bookstore. And a win also signifies popular support of your novel already (and big players tend to get even bigger, naturally).
2) Well it is the most prestigious award in its category. So of course it helps their career. Oprah talking about a book helps an authors career and that would be true regardless of if she was a shit literary critic or a good literary critic (hell honey boo boo talking about a book would help the author, and chum lee eating a subway samwitch on air is good for subway's career).
3) And there is no reason to suspect that it would not be better than average. It is a populous metric. the books that get more advertising get more readers and win the reward. Sort of, in general, kindof more advertising dollars will be spent on better books. So it will be better than average, but that is not to say that there is any reason to believe that it is above the 75 percentile of literary goodness.
(Score: 1) by wisnoskij on Monday April 13 2015, @02:02PM
At first glance I thought this was observed, SF has been huge into real world social issued since its inception and used that it was filled with green aliens instead of people to get away with more than any other genre would allow. Star Trek famously was the first to feature an interracial kiss. That said, the award should go to the best told story, not the one with the most populous message.
But more than that, there is a huge difference between what they are talking about and the Star Trek example. Star Trek got in a lot of trouble because it was portraying an unpopular message. But if you can get significant voting power this is obviously not an unpopular message. Gay Space Cowboys is not a cutting social justice issue, it is literary masturbation.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday April 13 2015, @02:08PM
I have found that I have lost the taste for SF over the last couple of decades. Once I read every scrap I could get my hands on, including everything Heinlein and others ever wrote. Then, when this topic came up on Slashdot two cycles ago I read "Canticle for Leibowitz" on some strong recommendations. It was mildly interesting, but that was it. When the topic came up on SN one cycle ago I tried to read "Aristoi" on another strong recommendation; it was clearly ornate, well-written, and well-thought out, but I couldn't get past the second chapter.
Somewhere along the line I became jaded, a grumpy old man, or SF itself changed. Are there any older Soylentils out there who can recommend a series or author they still find engaging?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @02:19PM
I bet you don't listen to new music the way you did as a kid either.
So yeah, grumpy old man.
(Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Monday April 13 2015, @02:42PM
I'm in the same boat. I stopped reading SF a couple years ago. I wonder now if I was ever really into it.
Last thing I read was "Enders Game", long before the movie was made, and was blown away by the first book, but very disappointed in the books that followed in that series.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @02:47PM
Soooo very unsurprised by your reaction to those books.
Manifestation of "Left in ideology and flavor, and ultimately lacking what might best be called visceral, gut-level, swashbuckling fun"
(Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Monday April 13 2015, @03:31PM
True that.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @04:41PM
... I suppose you can't remain 13 forever.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by SubiculumHammer on Monday April 13 2015, @06:16PM
The problem with most books and movies is that I recognize the tropes, but more than just the tropes, I recognize the devices, I recognize the characters, the roles, the rules, the plays, the turn-arounds, I get the overtures, the currents, the trip-tropped funky-dillows. I am jaded because rarely do I read something new, something that makes me wonder at the possibilities. Maybe fiction is exhausted, just like music now wallows in its own tropes unable to innovate, because innovation requires something that can be new, but there is nothing new on the dust of this planet.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Vanderhoth on Monday April 13 2015, @06:26PM
You know, to me you sound like exactly the type of person that should write your own novel. You're well versed enough to know the genera and you recognize all the common pitfalls. You could probably write something others would really gobble up.
All you need is a PC and a word processor to get started. Write some short stories.
I really enjoy occasionally reading http://soylentnews.org/~mcgrew/ [soylentnews.org]
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 2) by GeminiDomino on Monday April 13 2015, @08:49PM
I thought that about myself once. I don't know about GP, but I never got any further than the plotting because I always caught myself mixing the same old tropes that I'm so tired of. It made me feel like a hack.
"We've been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of our culture"
(Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Monday April 13 2015, @09:01PM
Humans have been creating art and stories for tens of thousands of years. I highly doubt there isn't anything that can't be boiled down to belonging to a "trope" of some kind. I think it's stupid. "Oh, we can't have a princess get kidnapped, that's a damsel in distress trope!", Yeah so what? It doesn't matter that that's a tired plot device as long as you can do something interesting with it. I really hate it when people strip away all of the interesting points in a story, the journey that takes place, the character development, the source of conflict and the resolution and pull out the one thing that makes the story "bad" because it's been used by other people to push their stories.
Things become tropes for a reason, if works. There's no sense listening to the people that get butthurt over it, they're not good enough to do any better so they spend all their time criticising how badly everyone else is doing it instead.
If you have a story to write, even if it's only for your own amusement, do it. I would, but I have my hands full writing a game (others who aren't programmers are doing the story) and making wooden clocks when I'm not at work.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 3, Touché) by GeminiDomino on Tuesday April 14 2015, @01:53AM
Oh, the last things I'm worried about is offending people. My concern over tropes has nothing to do with them being "Vs. Women", just that, as you've said, there's been so many stories written that every trope has been done to death, played with to death, inverted to death, and lampshaded to death: nothing I try to do with them feels "interesting."
On the bright side, at least I'm avoiding Dunning-Kruger.
"We've been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of our culture"
(Score: 2, Insightful) by SubiculumHammer on Monday April 13 2015, @11:52PM
Ha! If only I had time away from my research.
The few short-stories I've written with any hope of being good have been deeply personal confessionals about regrets, sins, and quandaries...but my life has been very lovely after meeting my wife.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @06:35PM
Walter Tevis' Mockingbird [wikipedia.org] - 1981 Hugo nominee Miéville [wikipedia.org] has written interesting stuff; I liked embassytown and the city & the city.
hard SF:
Cixin's Three Body Problem [wikipedia.org]
fantasy:
anything by Jo Walton [wikipedia.org], particularly Among Others [wikipedia.org] which was 2012 Hugo winner, has hundreds of recommendations of good SF/fantasy inside the story itself.
I tried re-reading Foundation about ten years ago (which I loved as a kid) and was astonished how badly written it is. Standards change as we get older...
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday April 14 2015, @03:26AM
It's not that I've stopped reading it (tho I don't do nearly as much reading as I used to... since I started writing myself, the editor in my head won't shut up) but that almost every time I read SF/F from the past 15 years or so, I feel an overwhelming urge to wash my brain out with SF/F from the 1980s. It's not because of the tiresome messagefic thing (that tends to just turn me off a given author, not other SF/F), it's the *sameness*. The lack of that feeling of seeing something new and wonderful (or terrifying). The lack of distinct voices and distinct characters and distinct worlds. The feeling like these younger authors are reinventing the wheel (and not getting it quite round) because of insufficient grounding in the genre's classics (whether they like 'em or not, they need to be aware of 'em).
I say this with probably 12,000+ SF/F books under my belt, from the earliest days onward, so I think I'm basing this on a tolerably broad spectrum.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Monday April 13 2015, @05:33PM
Try some Alistar Reynolds. He's got a series that posits FTL can't be done, but they can push ships to a good percentage of c and hibernate. Society has developed trading routes around the Milky Way, every few thousand years they have meetups at pre-arranged locations. It's assumed that once someone misses a meeting they're never seen again. Not because they're dead but, because of both relativistic effects and travel time of hundreds/thousands of years they'll never sync up with their buds again.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by curunir_wolf on Monday April 13 2015, @06:10PM
I am a crackpot
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday April 14 2015, @10:56AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Tuesday April 14 2015, @11:57AM
It's very long and then the ending is quite unsatisfying
That's an understatement :-)
For sale: Peter F. Hamilton's "The Naked God", some pages may be missing, only read once, only thrown against the wall in disgust once.
He does give new meaning to the words "Deus Ex Machina", I grant him that. Fucking hell...
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday April 14 2015, @04:14PM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by curunir_wolf on Thursday April 16 2015, @12:04AM
Good points all. Especially Pandora's Star as a start. Forgot about that - excellent choice.
I am a crackpot
(Score: 3, Informative) by jdccdevel on Monday April 13 2015, @06:38PM
I'm not sure what sort of S/F you're interested in. Some people like the "Hard Sci-Fi", and others like more of a crossover between "Sci-Fi and Fantasy". A LOT of the Sci-Fi out there now is very much Military Sci-Fi which, if it isn't your thing, can be off-putting.
My wife and I mostly read Fantasy, but I have read some interesting Sci-Fi lately, most of the more recent stuff has at least some military overtones though, and I can only take so much of that at a time.
Earthweb [baenebooks.com] by Marc Stiegler is a standalone book, but a really, really good read with some interesting near-future looks at technology. (If you can find a copy. It used to be on the Baen Free Library, but disappeared at some point.) If you like the sample chapters, I have the ebook.
Freehold [baenebooks.com], The Weapon, and Rogue by Michael Z Williamson [michaelzwilliamson.com] are very entertaining, without being too stereotypical. Some of his other stuff is very, very military though, and he doesn't hide his politics.
With the Lightnings [baenebooks.com], and the rest of the "RCN" Series by David Drake was really engaging. Very much "High seas adventure in space" sort of stuff, older now but not dated at all.
(I read a lot of Baen, thanks to devouring their free library when I had less disposable income to feed my book habit.)
If you want to try branching out to Fantasy, you might find that worthwhile, and I would have tons of recommendations there depending on what you're into. (A lot of people I know have migrated to fantasy because newer Sci-Fi has become so militaristic.)
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Monday April 13 2015, @09:01PM
If you don't like Canticle, Phoenix666, then I label you a "difficult customer" :-)
I dunno.. I read far less in the last decade. I liked Charles Stross (Accelerando, Halting State), Vernor Vinge (Rainbows End, A Fire Upon the Deep, A Deepness in the Sky). Plus lots from Iain (M.) Banks. That's about it, really.
Have you ever tried to read Samuel R. Delaney's Triton? (Difficult to read! (well, for me anyways)) or Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow? (Not SF, and very difficult to read!!!). I mention these because you're difficult, so maybe you like difficult books :-)
In the category "Fantasy": maybe Robert Holdstock's sequel to "Mythago Wood", "Lavondyss", or Terry Pratchett's "The Fifth Elephant" (It's the only Discworld book that I still feel like I don't understand it well)
In the category Non-Fiction, subcategory "OMG we're all gonna die": John Michael Greer's "The Long Descent: A User's Guide to the End of the Industrial Age". Buy it on real paper, just in case ;-). An incredibly uplifting and motivating book, and it shows the writer understands fairy-tales. And add to that Jared Diamond's Collapse maybe (don't read if you're depressive).
In the category "Literature", try a translation of Harry Mulisch's "De Aanslag": "The Assault", or watch the film it's not half bad either.
In the category "Now for something completely different", go watch the Russian Masha i Medved children's cartoon films on youtube. You don't need to understand Russian to understand the Bear's grunts.
Please respond one day if any of these were of interest to you. I'm a grumpyoldman-in-training, so keeping grumpy old men entertained is important to my own future well-being.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday April 13 2015, @09:43PM
No, I haven't encountered those before, so thanks for the recommendations (and thanks to the other Soylentils who recommended books & authors). I will check them out. I may be a difficult customer, I don't know; the last series I enjoyed were Kim Stanley Robinson's [Red | Green | Blue] Mars books, and Neal Stephenson's books, but even he started to lose me in the Baroque Cycle. Casting further back standouts for me were David Brin's Startide Rising and Frank Herbert's Dune books.
Of course when I was younger I read and enjoyed piles of SF that basically boiled down to "What if?" scenarios, because I didn't have a lot of life experience under my belt and none of the university education about the systems of thought that underlie literature. Now that I've had those things and have had access to various corridors of celebrity and power, too, that sort of story doesn't hold my attention any more. Even the richly imagined universe-approach, while I can respect it as an intellectual endeavor and artistic achievement, loses me because it seems to lack deeper meaning.
I know English and Literature geeks would probably urge me to read Brothers Karamazov or Madame Bovary or something, but the minutiae of 18th century French society or the inner workings of feudal Russian serfdom are dull & dreary. It calls to mind the experience of slogging through the entire Iliad for that one scene where Hector bids farewell to his wife and son on the Walls of Troy. Great scene, very human moment, but *shudder*, the rest is so tedious and pointless...
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by JamestheWanderer on Tuesday April 14 2015, @03:23AM
You might also want to take a look at William Gibson [Idoru, All Tomorrow's Parties] and John Ringo / Linda Evans [The Road to Damascus]. Have your read C.J. Cherryh's [Foreigner] series? Culture clash on a vast scale.
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Tuesday April 14 2015, @09:38AM
I'll keep Kim Stanley Robinson in mind, I've heard that before. Brothers Karamazov is the only book that *literally* bored me to tears. I exclaimed: "how many more pages are they going to be blabbering on about that dead priest?!?". 75 IIRC. Different times, I guess.
20th century Russians are OK, I've tried (in translation) Aleksander Solzhenitsyn(sp?) (boring, sorry) and Anatoli Rybakov. But it's all quite .. plodding .. compared to the 6 minutes of pure joy of every Masha i Medved episode (suitable for children, except the episodes with the jam jar which they shouldn't emulate).
Gravity's Rainbow is from the 1950s IIRC and difficult to get into. But I've not often read a stranger book than that, which is an experience in itself.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday April 13 2015, @02:29PM
Swashbuckling? Really? That's their vision for Sci-Fi? I think that's been pretty much done to death. If Sci-Fi isn't the place for investigating new ideas, then nothing is.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Vanderhoth on Monday April 13 2015, @04:39PM
I think the thing is there's no problem with having both. It's not like SF is just two writers and it's either column A or column B.
The issue the sad puppies are taking is the writers that are exploring other ideas, just don't appeal to the masses, who apparently like "swashbuckling". So the authors "exploring other ideas" started this whole submitting slates and politicking it up to get their stuff voted for. Which I have no issue with, if I was a writer I'd shill my work to my fans too and ask them to vote for me.
In all honesty it's a stupid system because the Hugo's have historically had such a small number fans voting. Even this year it was just over 2,000 people, which is up JUST 200 from last year and only about a 100 from the year before. At the very least the sad puppies campaign is bringing in a much larger voting base, on both sides, and they're informing people where to go to get all the authors and telling people to vote for what they like not just what's being recommended.
I say they're bringing in people on both sides, because the opposition to sad puppies is also stepping up their game. It's unfortunate that they're now calling for a nomination committee so they can choose who gets nominated to keep the wrong type of authors out and limit who can be voted on for the award.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 5, Insightful) by iamjacksusername on Monday April 13 2015, @02:46PM
Calling the Hugo Awards left-wing is... wow, just ignoring a lot. I am not even sure what these writers would consider "not left-wing" based on their selections. Or good. As far as I know, Kevin J. Anderson writes Star Wars novels and Dune universe books with Brian Herbert. He is not a bad writer but I wouldn't say he is going to write the next Starship Troopers or Earthsea.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday April 14 2015, @10:58AM
He is not a bad writer
I think you may be confusing him with someone else. Or has he yet managed to write a single book that had an ending? The best thing he's written is the first book in Dean Koontz' Frankenstein series, and that's only because other people wrote the rest and he only had to do the setup.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @03:09PM
Awards have very little to say in what I like or do not like. The same with movie critics.
Name the last time you picked up a book because it won one of these awards. I honestly can not think of the last time I did that. I pick up books based on story summaries and recommendations from people I know. That they won some award is usually a 'hm that kind of interesting'.
Most media is junk. Over time the good stuff sticks around and you can then pick it up if you missed it the first time around.
Are you going to miss out on something. Yes.
As for this tempest in a teapot. It sounds like two groups jacking each other off and they are arguing who is more bigoted. When the effect is they *all* are. Both groups want to squelch out anything that does not fit their world view.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by naubol on Monday April 13 2015, @04:27PM
ANGRY MINORITY FIELD GUIDE
How do you succeed as a pissed off minority? First, you're never going to get anywhere if you stop being angry for a moment and start to think about why you're actually angry. Doing this will inhibit your ability to vehemently exhort your position. So, the first tip is remain angry at all costs and make sure all the members of your community are also angry.
Appeal to their vanity! Make sure they understand that what they want is not proportionately represented with the existing system. Help establish martyrs, used words like, "we're being attacked!". Cloak yourself in the righteousness necessary to suggest that you're just trying to get some equal representation in a world totally against you.
Before you launch your conspiracy to grab disproportionate control over the system, establish a story line that suggests the current system has unjustly ignored you. It is important to cherry pick evidence, but even dealing with evidence is a problem. The mere existence of policies or artifacts that are not to your taste should be branded as proof positive that you are being marginalized beyond all justification. While speaking about their products, it is important that you use characterizations that imply the worthlessness of the majority's output as well as their general lack of fitness for general society. You have to appeal to bystanders who might be considered reasonable.
Since you're going to be flinging a *lot* of poo in this process, it is important that you find sensitive firebrands in the majority who you can pick on and reference constantly in the upcoming struggle. If you pick the white knights that exist on the other side, they may be so boring that reasonable observers will figure out that you're slinging almost all of the poo! Remember, your actions will be considered much more justifiable if you can get some on their side to lower themselves to your level. Since you will soon have a platform for voicing your views loudly, you can and should make these opposing poo-flingers much more famous than they should be!
Remember, you have more to win than they do if the argument turns ugly, because you will now get to frame the debate! This will cause everyone to start talking about the middle as thought it is halfway between you and them, a big win for you! In the process of making the other side's poo-flingers more famous, you will also marginilize the more reasonable voices on the other side, who are better able to counter your arguments without making it seem like they're being unfair.
You absolutely must develop words that shame and humiliate people. Without these, your characterization attacks will sound rather week. Since the other side is a complicated nuanced community with a large tent and a million views, if you present too many views yourself, you won't be able to create an us vs them mentality and your community might fragment underneath you. Therefore, at all costs, push a simple image of them and a simple image of you. This also helps you sound reasonable, because it is easy to drop a low-grade whine referencing just the two simple concepts and why yours is so obviously better.
Segregate your messaging based on the medium. Your most insane comments need to be kept with the true believers or you might end up being perceived by all people as too fringe to accommodate. Remember, most people want to compromise! You actually want a compromise, because you will win far more than you deserve, based on your numbers.
Your public comments should be angry, low-grade, generic, and easy for other low-grade angry internet users to project their own frustrations. Then, they become your natural allies on other forums as they really just want to feel like they're part of something. They aren't usually living lives filled with affection and security, so they'll do anything that makes them feel a little powerful.
Be careful, however. One of the hidden dangers is that someone more extreme will hijack your movement out from under you! Unfortunately, I don't have much advice here because this tends to be inevitable. However, if this does happen, at least you can comfort yourself that your successful efforts at balkanizing a community make you an important person.
HAPPY MINORITY FIELD GUIDE
Make reasonable requests, seek concession, start dialogues, build loyalty (slowly), suggest how the larger community can absorb your interest requests without significantly compromising theirs, build bridges, ... This process takes decades and much more effort. It also is rarely satisfying. You do have to be disruptive, people do only appreciate strength, but judiciously so, and that is a hard needle to thread!
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Monday April 13 2015, @07:07PM
Of something that incest-obsessed, libertarian loving, hack writer put in one of his books...
Which seems like good advice for the folks involved in this foofaraw.
Good advice. Good enough to win a Hugo [wikipedia.org], even.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 5, Informative) by Nerdanel on Monday April 13 2015, @07:58PM
The previous year the Sad Puppies managed to get Opera Vita Aeterna by Vox Day nominated for a Hugo in the Best Novelette category. The only reason for that choice that I can see is that Vox Day/Theodore Beale is a super extreme right-winger and outspoken about that and is also the only person ever to have been kicked out of the Science Fiction Writers of America. There's a lot about that online if you're interested, including his blog. Now, I've read Opera Vita Aeterna and I can say it's seriously bad. I've read worse fanfiction but I've also read a good deal of better fanfiction. In the actual voting the story ended up in the last place below No Award, and that was deserved.
Here's the first sentence of Opera Vita Aeterna (a title which is incidentally one of the many examples of mangled Latin in the story):
"The pallid sun was descending, its ineffective rays no longer sufficient to hold it up in the sky or to penetrate the northern winds that gathered strength with the whispered promises of the incipient dark."
You should hopefully be able to see the terrible writing there. I don't think this post is the right place for a detailed review of all the sucky aspects of the novella. That would take too much time.
If the Sad Puppies somehow didn't choose Opera Vita Aeterna on pure politics and were completely honest about wanting to promote quality, they would still suffer from so much bad taste that they shouldn't be let anywhere near any awards. They did get Kevin J. Anderson nominated for Best Novel this year though, so maybe they just don't know good from bad.
But what's worse is that the Sad Puppies' existence has brought about the Rabid Puppies slate, which was largely about Vox Day promoting himself in the name of fighting the SJWs. The Rabid Puppies slate was highly successful, even more so than the Sad Puppies, with which it had significant overlap. That's why the 2015 Hugos have so many nominations for Vox Day and authors directly tied to Vox Day. He made a publishing house for himself, you see, which is somehow totally different from self-publishing his unpublishable crap.
So now Vox Day has gotten himself, with his own slate and his own voting bloc, nominated for Short Form Editor and Long Form Editor. His tiny Castalia House has 4 novella nominations, 1 novelette nomination, 2 short story nominations, 2 related work nominations, and 2 Campbell Award nominations. These amount to 13 nominations for Vox Day's financial/egotistical benefit and include 6 nominations in 4 categories for John C. Wright, another outspoken super extreme right-winger and Vox Day's buddy. Dodgy.
I hope that makes my point about the new bloc voting having been bad for the Hugos and the quality of the nominees.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 14 2015, @03:28AM
Considering the themes in Martin's writing I am surprised he could ever truly be aligned with the left or accepted by them. The two appear to be mutually exclusive. Words are wind, and I suspect he is playing lip service in order to stay onside with a small but vocal group.