Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
The 75th World Science Fiction Convention (commonly known as WorldCon) is being held this weekend in Helsinki, Finland. The convention is where the annual Hugo Awards are presented, and today, the convention announced the latest recipients.
This year, women almost completely swept the Hugo Awards, taking home the top prizes for literature in the science fiction community. That's particularly notable, given how the awards have been increasingly recognizing works from female and minority creators. The trend prompted a counter-movement from two group of fans, the self-described "Sad Puppies," and their alt-right equivalents, the "Rabid Puppies." These groups gamed the awards and forced a slate of nominees onto the Hugo ballot in 2015, prompting widespread backlash within the wider genre community. Another award, the Dragon, faced similar issues earlier this week when several authors asked to pull their nominations over concerns about Puppy interference and the award's integrity.
This year's sweep by female creators seems to be a strong repudiation of anti-diversity groups. 2017 also marked the year the ceremony earned its own award: a representative from the Guinness Book of World Records certified that the Hugos are the longest-running science fiction awards ever.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @09:18AM (17 children)
I hope we're just as happy when it's all men getting the awards.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @09:45AM (14 children)
Sure, if it's based on merit and not a diversity push. If it's a result of affirmative action (aka: discrimination) it is sexist (to both sexes) and the awards just became meaningless.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Wednesday August 16 2017, @10:30AM (12 children)
"Sure, if it's based on merit and not a civersity push"
Yes, well, about that.
The article claims that the "Sad Puppies" and "Rabid Puppies" gamed the awards in previous years. That depends on your definition: the rules are, anyone can vote. So the puppies did. Seeing that the puppy-candidates were in danger of winning, the usual in-crowd that always votes couldn't get their chosen works through, so they used to rules to avoid giving anyone an award in several categories. So...who, exactly, gamed the system?
This year, the puppy groups did not vote. The results are out, and they're back to what the awards had become before the Puppy-intervention: The authors are properly diverse (no straight white males need apply), and the stories are all about portraying a correct political and societal landscape. The science fiction is especially bad, because there is no science to be found. I picked one random example from this year's winners: The Art of Space Travel [tor.com]. It's about colonizing Mars in 2046, but this is the kind of "science" you get in the story:
"There’s a good chance the whole crew will wind up dead before they can even set up a base there, or a sealed habitat, or whatever it is they’re supposed to be doing when they arrive."
Otherwise, the story is about a woman's rambling internal thoughts, among other things wondering why people would ever do such a crazy thing as trying to colonize Mars. That might be fine, if it were some kind of exception, but it's not. That's as good, as "science-fiction" as SF&F gets. The Hugo awards have become a great list of stuff not to read.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday August 16 2017, @01:22PM
So, in short, the awards are almost meaningless. In other news, women swept the women's competitions in the last Olympics, while men were segregated into separate competitions.
I will admit that I have found a few stories written by women that were worth reading, because they were nominated for awards. But, by and large, women aren't exactly writing "science fiction". Someone should have created a whole new award system for things like space opera. Women do well at that - but I'm not interested in it. Let them have all the awards they want, I really don't care. Just don't call it science fiction, unless it really IS science fiction.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday August 16 2017, @02:52PM (4 children)
I liked sci-fi better back in the good ol' 1950s, when characters had lots of casual sex, polyamory, "line marriages", etc. What happened to those days?
(My point here being, I'll bet any classic Heinlein novel was way more socially liberal than whatever these award-winning authors are pumping out today, and his stuff came out in the ultra-conservative 50s.)
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Wednesday August 16 2017, @05:31PM (1 child)
I think those Heinlein books were published in the 60's, not the 50's.
-- hendrik
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday August 16 2017, @06:03PM
You're right, I stand corrected. However, according to the Wikipedia article [wikipedia.org], Stranger in a Strange Land came out in 1961, which was still some time before the free-love era of the late 60s, and he started exploring these themes as far back as 1939.
(Score: 3, Informative) by tibman on Wednesday August 16 2017, @06:16PM (1 child)
The last one i read that had a more interesting take on social stuff and sex was Walkaway by Cory Doctorow. Came out just a few months ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkaway_(Cory_Doctorow_novel) [wikipedia.org]
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday August 16 2017, @06:37PM
Sounds pretty interesting. Of course, it's by a man, and an old one at that (he's 46--a Gen Xer) in the eyes of the hipsters, so it's irrelevant to modern sci-fi literature.
Looks like it'd make a good movie; it has everything. Military + mercenaries attacking communes and later war, sex, post-scarcity, open source... But the hipsters will probably hate it.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Grishnakh on Wednesday August 16 2017, @02:59PM (4 children)
A brief teaser about the book from your link:
Holy crap does this sound boring. But it would explain why the rambling thoughts would include wondering why people would colonize Mars, and that one line you quoted: the story is from the point-of-view of a *hotel housekeeper*. That's like writing a story about making the world's most advanced processor chips, and have it written by one of the janitors at the fab's front office. I didn't bother reading the novelette, just the teaser, but if you wanted to paint a picture of a future world where men and women are equals, including in STEM professions, why would you have the main female protagonist be a maid, instead of one of the astronauts?
(Score: 2) by https on Wednesday August 16 2017, @03:24PM (3 children)
I'll bite.
Because good science fiction is intended to look at society, and society has room service.
Offended and laughing about it.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Wednesday August 16 2017, @04:23PM (2 children)
Society has always had "shit jobs", but that doesn't mean I want to read a long narrative about some janitor's thoughts and feelings, even if it is set in a hypothetical future. Some stories about the lowest members of society can be interesting, but usually only when they're properly set in an actual time period, either present or past (so you get a "slice of life" perspective), or when something really interesting happens to them (such as, a robot from the future is sent back in time to terminate her before she can give birth to the resistance leader) and they become much more than just some lowly worker. When you set a story in the future, you're already making up the setting instead of borrowing from reality/history, so I really don't see the appeal of looking at this imagined future from the perspective of someone who just isn't very interesting and doesn't do anything interesting. Going by the little bit I read, it looks like the imagined future really isn't even explored very much, which is the whole point of sci-fi: to explore.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @04:42PM (1 child)
Men: forgetting they are only half the species since the 1950s.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Grishnakh on Wednesday August 16 2017, @06:10PM
I guess we'll see from the sales numbers just how well chick-sci-fi actually sells to female readers. Considering the very poor showing of women in STEM in western society, and the general disinterest western women seem to have in sci-fi in general, I don't think these authors are going to be big sellers. After all, if women really did have a serious interest in this stuff, don't you think Lifetime TV would be making a bunch of boring female-oriented sci-fi movies along these lines by now?
Meanwhile, mainstream sci-fi movies seem to have no trouble casting women in leading roles while attracting large audiences (which are probably over 50% male), and they've been doing it since at least "Alien" in 1979.
(Score: 1) by insanumingenium on Wednesday August 16 2017, @06:31PM
Am I blind, or do I not actually see that story on the winners list?
I will be the first to admit, other than "The Expanse" I don't actually recognize anything on the winning list, I don't read a lot of "new" fiction.
The winner is apparently a sequel to last years winner, hard to judge if that is politics or good fiction without reading it, but the synopsis isn't as inane as what you describe in "The Art of Space Travel". I do get worried about the fact that there is a very well publicized positive NPR review by another one of the winners from this year. Whether that is an "old boys club", or just cream rising to the top would be hard to judge without reading the books. Then again I can't stand Orson Scott Card, and he is the only other back to back winner I see on a cursory inspection of the list.
I also note that Ursula K. Le Guin (who won a minor category) is a Best Novel winner from 1970 and 1975, perhaps these aren't all diversity hires?
I will read the winning series, winning consecutive Hugos is rare. If it turns out that they are the trash reported here, I will know not to trust the Hugos anymore, which is sad, because it was a prestigious award once upon a time. But I will at least give them a chance.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by driverless on Thursday August 17 2017, @02:07AM
And that's the problem with this one: If you won a Hugo this year, you now no longer know whether you got it was because (a) you've created a story that's genuinely better than anyone else's or (b) you created a so-so story and have tits. Friend of mine actually declined an award some years ago because she felt insulted by the fact that the main criterion for getting it was her gender, not her (considerable) talent.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @12:05PM (1 child)
They proved in previous years that if you have a penis, you're disqualified from the award.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @01:12PM
Feminine penii are ok.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @09:32AM (1 child)
Bias much?
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Wednesday August 16 2017, @10:41AM
Anti-diversity groups: they're all the same...
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @09:46AM (22 children)
This just shows that there are more feminine writers than men currently. When it comes to employment, awards, salary etc, it is all okay as long as a quota system is not used. In this kind of contexts quota systems are just evil.
Let me show you why quotas are evil. For example, among computer scientists, most seem to be men as until now very few women have had interest to study computer science. Now imagine one Gaussian curve for how skilled people are. Most will be average, which is why the Gaussian curve is highest in the middle. Then we have extra ordinary good ones to the right, they are fewer so the curve goes down. The same we have for the bad ones to the left.
If there are much fewer women than men, and a quota system is used, it means all women get employed, also the worst from the curve, while if there is too many men, maybe only the very best men will get employed. Some of the average men will not even get a chance, even if they are better than the worst woman to get employed.
So, while on average both men and women might be the same skilled, a quota system forces in the less qualified women also. The result is that SJW goes crazy when they see that men advance more than women and that men get more paid than women.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Nuke on Wednesday August 16 2017, @11:13AM
You have stated the bleedin obvious in a very long-winded way. You are right, but anyone who cannot see this is deliberately not seeing it.
Some years ago I did cycle road racing in the UK. At the time hardly any women regularly did such racing - probably no more than 20 nationwide; this comapred with around 10,000 men. When it came to the Olympics or World Championships teams of about 5 or 6 (I cannot remember the exact number, but around that) of each sex were entered. So a woman rider only needed to be among the best 25% to become an Olympian, but a man had to be among the best 0.1%.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Wednesday August 16 2017, @11:24AM (15 children)
The argument for positive discrimination is that the pool of talented is the same as the pool of talented majority - but the talented are not very good at demonstrating their talent in interviews etc due to societal factors. So one should increment the "score" that get in interview to offset societal bias.
I don't know how "they" estimate or measure such a societal bias. It feels a bit woolly, but I can think of examples where I have been subconsciously biased again and I'm sure it happens to most people.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Wednesday August 16 2017, @12:16PM (1 child)
Oh dear, SN ate my angle brackets. Sigh,
(Score: 2, Informative) by JNCF on Wednesday August 16 2017, @01:48PM
FYI, < makes a < and > makes a >. Off-topic as fuck, so no karma bonus.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by FakeBeldin on Wednesday August 16 2017, @02:14PM (12 children)
Another "the argument for positive discrimination" is that society is skewed a certain way which is not providing everyone equal chances, which means society loses out. To address that, we're giving some who we believe had lesser chances a leg up. Maybe to help society address the imbalance now, (so society starts winning now), maybe to act as rolemodel / inspiration / refutation of lesser chances, so as to inspire a new generation to be less skewed, so society starts winning later.
I can certainly agree with the premise and I'll also agree that giving someone a leg up might potentially be of benefit to a future generation - extremely woolly, but I do see the potential there.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 16 2017, @02:52PM (10 children)
Nah. Nothing is gained by embracing mediocrity over greatness. Losing out on the greatness that was passed over is all that's accomplished. Society is in fact poorer for any discrimination, no matter the reason.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by j-beda on Wednesday August 16 2017, @03:24PM (9 children)
That might be correct if we had good definitions and measurements of what exactly constitutes "mediocrity" and "greatness", but we don't. The measures we use to select people for promotion, acceptance to programs, or for awards are very poor, and are hugely infleuenced by things that almost everyone agrees should be unrelated to the purpose of the selection. Putting a different name on the top of a college paper has an impact on how it is graded. Putting a different photograph on it has similar effect. The font choice of your resume effects selection.
Would society be worse off if we doubled the number of "competent" scientists, and halved the number of "geniuses"? Perhaps, but I suspect we would actually be better off - most of the science work I am familiar with was largely advanced by the crowd of plodders rather than the flashes of brilliance. If Einstein had died in childhood, others would very likely have produced the same work in a similar timeframe.
Our focus on finding "the best" in a group and advancing them I think is completely misguided in light of the impossiblity of actually deciding on what "the best" means, and on actually measuring it even if we knew what it was.
We might be able to broadly decided if members of a group meet minimum preparation standards (such as for acceptance to a training program/college/etc. with limited numbers of positions), but to more closely rank the members in order 1, 2, 3, etc. is just not possible on a consistent basis. To dole out the limited positions to those who have made the cut based on things beyond the unreliable rank ordering seems perfectly acceptable - even random selection from the pool makes some sense. Yes it sucks to not get one of the positions, but it sucks for everyone in the pool who doesn't get a position.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday August 16 2017, @04:29PM (3 children)
most of the science work I am familiar with was largely advanced by the crowd of plodders rather than the flashes of brilliance. If Einstein had died in childhood, others would very likely have produced the same work in a similar timeframe.
I seriously doubt it. I think a lot of science and technology really depends on a "flash of brilliance" to get to the next stage, because the plodders are generally content to stick with what they know and not challenge prevailing norms and conventional wisdom too much. But the plodders are needed to take the revolutionary stuff the brilliant people come up with and refine it and develop it into more useful forms. The plodders won't come up with the brilliant ideas, but they'll accept them once they're exposed to them, and do the hard work needed to advance them further. They each serve an essential purpose.
(Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Thursday August 17 2017, @09:56AM (2 children)
With regards to Einstein's relativity theory:
- Galileo already had discussed relativity [tau.ac.il].
- Lorentz had already figured out contraction due to velocity [wikipedia.org] - which strongly suggests a link between time and space.
- The Michelson-Morley experiment [wikipedia.org] had paved the way for Lorentz transformation [wikipedia.org], which paved the way for special relativity (which paved the way for general relativity).
In other words: special relativity was brewing around the start of the 20th century. Add to that:
- The perihelion procession of Mercury was by Einstein's time well-documented, and clearly observations were not in accordance with Newtonian gravity.
- The development of special relativity in 1905
and you start wondering about incorporating gravity into special relativity.
(that feat was much more remarkable than special relativity, by the way. Much less "shoulders of giants" to stand on -- but raising the question was obvious)
With regard to the photoelectric effect (for which Einstein was awarded a Nobel prize):
- it was a clearly defined open problem
- it used Planck's discovery of E = h v (which basically started quantum mechanics) to explain this effect.
Are Einstein's results less remarkable for these reasons? I don't believe so - this is just putting his achievements in (some of) their proper historical context. It's beyond remarkable what he has achieved - but so are the achievements of other scientists from his day, less well-known today.
(Case in point: Wolfgang Pauli explained [wikipedia.org] why you don't fall through a chair, even though there's all this open space in atoms making up the chair and making up you. It also happens to explain why neutron stars aren't black holes.)
Moreover,
At the start of the 20th century, there were a few experiments scientists could perform in a reasonably simple lab that they could not explain. Moreover, it was still possible for an exceptionally smart person to know a lot of/most/all of known physics. Compared to contemporary research, some of the significant questions that arose back then were relatively obvious: "why does Mercury not move the way it should?" "Why does electricity come out of this experiment in the wrong way?" etc.
Right now, a lot of well-publicized physics research involves things happening far in outer space (gamma ray bursts) or in big friggin' machines on Earth (LHC, ITER, NIF). None of which a research team could easily take home and play with.
Oh, and
Depends on your definition of brilliant. Maxwell did brilliant work in electromagnetism. His results were wonderful... and more or less unusable.
Along comes Oliver Heaviside, who reorganises [wikipedia.org] Maxwell's results into the four famous Maxwell equations. That reorganisation may have been "plodding" work, but without that work Maxwell's results would have remained unused by most physicists.
Caveat: At the Dunning-Kruger scale of understanding physics, I'm probably at the bottom. So go out and read about this stuff yourself :)
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday August 17 2017, @01:51PM (1 child)
I think this is going to come down to an argument over who's a "plodder" and who's "brilliant". You mention that several other prominent people were close to discovering what Einstein did; but weren't those people also possibly part of the "brilliant" group? I misworded what I said before with "I seriously doubt it"; what I really meant to dispute is the idea that physics would have developed Einstein's theories without someone as brilliant as Einstein, not Einstein himself. Sure, without him, some other brilliant person could have come up with it before long. But without any brilliant people, I'm not so sure. My claim is that the brilliant ones are necessary to make these big advances.
As for Heaviside, that makes a good case for my prior assertion that both types of people are necessary (if we assume that Heaviside really was a "plodder" and not at all "brilliant").
(Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Thursday August 17 2017, @02:12PM
Ah, I believe we are actually agreeing :)
I guess I was putting the barrier for "brilliant" a bit high - but if this category encompasses the likes of Pauli, de Broglie, Lorentz, Born, Heisenberg, Bohr, Rutherford, etc, (all of whom were quite impressive) then yes, absolutely, without such folks, scientific progress would grind to a halt.
Just to be clear: I would not want to label Heaviside a plodder in general. His work in cleaning up the Maxwell equations can be considered "plodding" though (as I understand things).
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 16 2017, @06:59PM (4 children)
Yeah, that's word for word what I'd expect a jealous, mediocre person to say.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Thursday August 17 2017, @09:58AM (3 children)
Care to comment on the contents of the presented argument?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday August 17 2017, @11:44AM (2 children)
No. There's no arguing with a toddler throwing a fit and that's precisely what that "argument" amounted to.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Friday August 18 2017, @08:53AM (1 child)
A brilliant person would debate the logic, not attack the person making the argument. False logic methinks.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday August 20 2017, @03:42PM
Nah, there's no point in arguing with someone who believes nonsense like that. You're not going to win them over with logic because logic is not at home within their mind. Insult them and move on.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by SanityCheck on Thursday August 17 2017, @12:40AM
Except it's not skewed and it doesn't need correcting. All you are going to do is make everything shit and everyone unhappy. But keep cutting your nose to spite your face, I do not really care. I can pretty much just read old Sci-Fi instead of the turds being stamped out by the PC crowd.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @01:42PM (4 children)
From about 4 years of age boys focus on boy stuff and recognize girls as other (girls smell). Girls (or girls mothers) very quickly differential from boys and eventually dress, pluck, cut and paint their way to looking 'unlike men' as possible while maintaining facial symmetry. Men on the whole want to do things that men do. Dito for women. When women are shown to want to, or be able to do a job, boys will see this as what women do. Be it low or high status work, men will happily do something else, or nothing.
By the time all key positions a held by women via the HUGO quota system they'll be looking around and asking where all the men have gone and why there are no good men to marry any more.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @02:27PM
Not an issue. Most of the rabid feminists are either not marriageable material due to aesthetics and temperament or they are queer men who like to play dress up and pretend they are women. Either way, their prospects are minimal even with wide opportunities.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday August 16 2017, @06:14PM
asking where all the men have gone and why there are no good men to marry any more.
This won't be a problem in the near future: marriage rates are plummeting, and marriage will be mostly obsolete in a couple decades. The main problem here is how to keep the population size stable without the past incentives (/brainwashing) to convince people to "settle down" with someone they have a poor chance of really liking that much long-term and have kids. The answer, of course, is to transition to the society depicted in the brilliant visionary novel "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley in 1949, but getting to that point from here may be rough.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @06:21PM
I, too, believe the Heavenly Father created us Male and Female, and not at all Gay, and that the reason for the existence of females is to become my spiritual wives, as many as possible, so that in the Future, if I am worthy, i can have my own planet Kolob. Peace be upon Joseph Smith, and Orson Scott Card.
(Score: 2) by dry on Thursday August 17 2017, @03:25AM
it's amazing what the marketers have done to childhood. At one time, kids were kids, usually dressed in white and not marketed to. This started to change in the latter part of the 19th century, accelerated with department stores which segregated boy from girl and really took off when Reagan vetoed a non-partisan law that would have regulated how TV marketed to children.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 16 2017, @10:18AM (36 children)
Congratulations. You may see this as a win for diversity but your en masse virtue signaling has done what the Puppies couldn't manage. It has firmly declared a Hugo to be an irrelevant award. Puppies win.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @10:27AM (17 children)
Or, women are just better at writing science fiction, and always have been. The Sad Puppies have only served to make that manifest! Poor Sad Puppies! Maybe they could win a "Red Pillar" award, instead?
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @10:43AM
Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, to suggest her work stood the test of time merely by the non-virtue of having being written by an individual without a Y chromosome is stupid. To suggest there was not always equality of opportunity at the Hugo awards is stupid and to force equality of outcome by politicising the awards is stupid. If females are "just better at writing science fiction" then why would it be newsworthy that women win the majority of awards? And if that were the case, wouldn't neo-marxists be looking to force women out to ensure their precious equality of outcome?
(Score: -1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 16 2017, @10:54AM (11 children)
Your trolling aside, that's actually a good idea. The SJW fix is so firmly in at the Hugos that there's nothing for it but to ignore them and start an award actually based on merit.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @11:04AM (10 children)
Except the "Sad Puppy" criteria of "merit" sucks! Or at least wishes it could.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @01:27PM
And, you wish you could suck a sad puppy, right?
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday August 16 2017, @03:01PM (8 children)
Yeah, that's the problem here: reactionism. When you have one group that turns extremist, other people join another reactionary group on the opposite, but also extreme side. Then the reasonably people in the middle get sick of the bullshit and leave.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 16 2017, @03:16PM (7 children)
Seems to be like the problem would be the original group turning extremist then, no?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday August 16 2017, @04:20PM
Yeah, but that's not uncommon. There's always extremists. I guess the problem is when you give the extremists too much attention instead of just ignoring them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @04:45PM (4 children)
Your intellectual acuity couldn't cut a wet noodle.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Wednesday August 16 2017, @06:24PM (3 children)
Buzzards are better at tearing fetid carcasses. Don't know what to do with noodles, or real literature.
(Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 16 2017, @07:01PM (2 children)
I do so. You hang the literature on a nail in the outhouse and hope it has softish pages.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Wednesday August 16 2017, @09:17PM (1 child)
That's the Sears & Roebuck's Catalog! But if that is your standard for literature, I can see why the Hugo Awards disappoint you so. (Does Sears even print a hardcopy catalog anymore? I tried wiping with Amazon, and it seemed to just spread it around.)
(Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday August 17 2017, @11:47AM
Nah, I like those nice, thin-paged books you get at religious establishments. You can also roll a cigarette with them if you're in a bind.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @06:28PM
No! there is bad writing on both sides! Didn't you see those Happy Kittens that attacked the poor sexist/racist Sad Puppies? So sad, so sad! I know that no one is going to say it, no one besides TMB is going to say it, but David Duke wrote a fine book, too!
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday August 16 2017, @01:26PM (3 children)
In your wildest fucking dreams. Or, in my worst nightmares. Once again, there have been excellent female authors all along. Those authors wrote SCIENCE FICTION. Today's authors are writing something different and new. They maybe deserve awards, but not SCIENCE FICTION AWARDS.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @02:21PM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday August 16 2017, @03:06PM
Just going by that one link someone posted to "The Art of Space Travel", it seems like it's become basically "chick-lit" (e.g., stories about characters exploring their feelings and experiencing drama) set in the not-too-far future, rather than speculative fiction which explores the societal impact of possible new technologies and discoveries.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @06:37PM
Poor, poor Runaway! Why does the world have to keep changing so much?
(Score: 2, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 16 2017, @12:59PM (12 children)
I think someone needs to read the moderator guidelines. Not liking what someone says != you should downmod it. You should be ashamed of yourself for bringing down the quality of moderation on the site.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by https on Wednesday August 16 2017, @03:35PM (7 children)
You could stop using "virtue signalling", "SJW" etc. in your posts. It's meaningless babble at best, and the intent to insult is not even thinly veiled. Then we could see if you have anything to say worth upmodding!
Offended and laughing about it.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @04:04PM (2 children)
Waste of breath, this whole thread is reactionary garbage and people like TMB are beyond reason when it comes to the dreaded sjws. The persecution complex from the conservative base is getting ridiculous. At least we can laugh at them, but it is still somewhat depressing.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @04:44PM (1 child)
How dare people use pejorative names that I don't like! That just proves how bad everybody is who doesn't agree with me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @05:23PM
Nope, your sarcasm misses the mark. TMB is the one who shouldn't be whining about getting downmodded for using reactionary phrases. All political "sides" get frequently downmodded for using nasty wording.
I see your problem though, you can't tell the difference between helpful advice and personal attacks.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 16 2017, @07:02PM (3 children)
The insult isn't veiled at all. I absolutely meant it to be blatant. When you're a shitty excuse for a human being, expect to be insulted.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @08:43PM
You are a piece of human trash your mom wishes she had aborted. Your brain is comparable to a walnut, and your nuts long ago abandoned ship. You stink, literally. Please take a shower. Your writing is tired, your arguments lame, your logic nonexistent. Your face looks more like a shit I took last week and your best friend is a dirty rag you drew a smiley face on.
I'm not sure if that was quiiiite enough insults to accurately depict your value as a human being, but at least you get the picture.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @09:48PM (1 child)
is this not a signaling of virtue as well?
social justice too -- he wants the old guard back.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday August 17 2017, @11:48AM
You're mistaking actual justice for social justice. It's an easy mistake to make if you're blindingly stupid.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Thursday August 17 2017, @10:14AM (3 children)
2. There is no "reason for moderation" box. Unless you were talking about how you yourself moderated posts, you cannot know why someone downmodded. Oh, sure, you can say "I don't like the downmod, so it must be because the moderator didn't like the post!" But that that's an assumption, which makes an ass out of u and mption.
1. Next time you complain about people needing to read something, put a link there will you?
Moderator guidelines [soylentnews.org]
0. I have no clue which moderation to which post you're complaining about. From the moderation FAQ:
Under these guidelines, plenty of posts deserve downmodding, including some of yours.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday August 17 2017, @12:19PM (2 children)
I can see how you'd make that mistake, not being able to see every single moderation on the admin pages. Given enough data though, you absolutely can tell with a very high level of certainty why someone moderated a given post a certain way.
We have about half a dozen people who, if I were a tyrannical type, I would permanently mod-ban. Their moderation history is majority negative and the posts they choose to downmod all have common political positions. Strangely, they are all from the progressive camp. There literally is not a single person in the middle or on the right who abuses the system in this particular way on a regular basis, though we all have our moments.
I've done a Troll hall of fame a few times and it was met with humor and pride. Somehow I don't get the feeling that I'd get the same response if I did a Shitty Moderator hall of fame and listed the people with the highest percentage of negative moderations under their belts. Actually, I think I'll float this past the rest of the staff. We could do with some well earned humiliation as a deterrent around here.
And, yeah, plenty of my posts deserve downmodding. I don't bitch when I'm trolling and get modded Troll. I take pride in that moderation. I bitch when I say something in all sincerity that someone vehemently disagrees with and get modded Troll.
The above is not meant to stir shit up. It's simply a venting. I'm mostly happy with how our moderation system works; everyone having the ability to correct a bad downmod if they see one. Usually they do. It doesn't work for every comment but it works for enough of them.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Thursday August 17 2017, @02:02PM (1 child)
I didn't know that. Thanks for pointing that out!
(I'd moderate your post "+1 informative", except I ran out of points for today).
That sounds like a good plan - you've got my vote.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday August 17 2017, @02:55PM
Well it's kind of a given that anyone with DB access could have that information any time they wanted. What I was specifically referring to was our "potential mod-bombs page" though. It lists everyone who's been down-modded more than three times in the past 72 hours by default and then lists who down-modded them, when, which comment, and other related shat. I check it for actual full-on mod-bombs several times a day usually (Though I almost never find any. Good work, folks.). There are like half a dozen people who show up way, way too much on the moderator column and if you click on through to the comment it's almost always something they politically disagree with.
It's just kind of discouraging at times.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @01:46PM (4 children)
The HUGO awards for womens literature have made their choice, I'm unsure of their goal. I was uncomfortable with the mixing of fantasy with science fiction back in the day, as I didn't see the connection and had no wish to read fantasy. Now that science fiction has been redefined to... well this HUGO definition and the counter push to it seems to be mostly play ground 'bang bang, your dead, no I'm not, yes you are' military scifi which seems to fixate on a US centric need to describe guns in excruciating detail, I think the genre is pretty much dead.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 16 2017, @02:08PM (3 children)
Their goal was simple but twofold: to signal virtue just as hard as they possibly could and to take away a means of giving credit to men for excelling at something that they are better at.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Sulla on Wednesday August 16 2017, @02:35PM (2 children)
Its annoying because it isn't that women are writing bad SF, they just arent even trying. They changed the definition of SF so women could win for the same fantasy they have always written.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 16 2017, @02:54PM (1 child)
Yeah, the bitch of it all is that I enjoy well-written fantasy just as much as I enjoy sci-fi. They are not even kind of the same thing though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @09:52PM
I take it the star wars (take your pick) does not fall under the category of both?
Although to your point, they are not the same thing... even if it was treated that way because George wasn't entirely clear on the concept.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by MostCynical on Wednesday August 16 2017, @10:40AM (1 child)
once the rule changes kick in, and 'slate' nominations become more difficult (if not impossible), and women still win, then, according to the nominators and voters, they will just have written the better stories.
http://www.worldcon.fi/wsfs-hugos/hugo-awards/hugo-awards-whats-new/ [worldcon.fi]
http://www.thehugoawards.org/hugo-history/a-short-history-of-the-hugo-awards-process/ [thehugoawards.org]
https://www.schneier.com/academic/paperfiles/Proportional_Voting_System.pdf [schneier.com]
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/016206.html [nielsenhayden.com]
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @01:13PM
As your first link says, the rule changes went into effect this year, which is why this year's ballot is so different from the past two years and more like years before that. The Hugo rules require a rule change to be approved two years in a row before it can take effect, which is why it took two years to respond to the Sad/Rapid Puppies with a rule change.
(Score: 2, Funny) by khallow on Wednesday August 16 2017, @12:50PM (3 children)
The car analogy would be:
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday August 16 2017, @02:10PM (1 child)
That's "car of color," you insensitive clod!
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @03:52PM
I think you'll find that the phrase you're looking for is 'racially challenged car'..
(Sad, but true, I once heard the mother of a minor Hollywood starlet who married a useless Hollywood actor use the phrase 'racially challenged' when referring to one of my West Indian colleagues in an amusing attempt at being 'politically correct'..talk about Freudian slips...)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @02:20PM
Yeah, a full sweep by women doesn't sound very diverse to me either. In fact it sounds like a strong concerted effort against diversity. The problem seems to be that there are just way too many pussies in the Hugos period. (Not a menstrual joke)
(Score: 2) by Sulla on Wednesday August 16 2017, @02:21PM (18 children)
It seemed like the problem to me is not that people think women can't write SF, it is that the women who are wining the awards for SF are not writing real SF. I personally do not give a shit whether the author is man/woman/various ethnicities as long as it is good SF. I will give some of the books that won a listen to see how they are but I imagine they are along the same lines as Weber's "a beautiful friendship" which was garbage.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 16 2017, @03:14PM (12 children)
Expect nothing else. SJWs fight because they lack the ability to create and want to take down those who have it. Their stated reasons are bullshit.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @03:51PM (4 children)
You are so delusional and the backlash in this entire thread is depressing. Bunch of prejudiced dudes butthurt over society taking away their participation prizes. There was no accusation of the awards being manipulated, but this whole thread whines on and on as if men were somehow chested. Grow up you whiny man children.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 16 2017, @07:07PM (2 children)
Why would they accuse themselves of anything? Or did you mean nobody accused them of manipulating the awards at all? Seems to me you only have to look around right here to put bullshit to that statement. Or any number of millions of other accusations around the rest of the Internet.
Whiny? Nah. Calling bullshit against SJWs isn't whining, it's just proclaiming the emperor has no clothes. Everyone with half a brain already knows it but most of them are too scared to say anything.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @08:48PM (1 child)
Ooooh, you so ALPHA TMB, I wish I could have your confidence and bravado!!!
Heh, you are such an epitome of the libertarian neckbeard. Thankfully other countries have their own shitheads so at least I don't have to worry that it is some virus with ground zero in the USA.
This entire situation can be summarized by the following: society moved on, some small % of conservative men can't handle it, try and actively cheat a system and then proclaim others are actually to blame.
Projection, it is what you conservatives do best.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday August 17 2017, @12:26PM
I get that a lot. You can be too if you want though. All you have to do is take responsibility for your own actions, reject responsibility for those of others, and refuse to reject reality just because it doesn't conform to what you think it should be. Oh, and have a huge dong.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Sulla on Wednesday August 16 2017, @10:30PM
Hugo winners
The Obelisk Gate (Science Fantasy) - Magic girl and her mom investigate climate change on not-earth (wiki)
Every Heart a Doorway - Girl goes through magical portal (PBS article)
The Tomato Thief - Grandma tries to catch whoever is stealing fresh tomatoes from her garden, finds herself drawn into a complex magical plot involving shapechangers, space warps, and gods. (wiki)
Seasons of Glass and Iron - Can't get past all the shoes to figure out the plot from a long summary of the article
Monstress, Volume 1: Awakening (Epic Fantasy) - Wars involving magic, slavery, and racism
Arrival (First one to call itself SF) - Aliens attack earth including montana
The Expanse: “Leviathan Wakes” (Show) - Not as good as the books, too much random character drama that didn't exist. Miller isn't played by the guy who plays Bullock in Gotham so it sucks.
The Vorkosigan Saga - Not going to look up a summary on a Saga, third paragraph of the wiki "The point of view characters include women (Cordelia in Shards of Honor and Barrayar; Ekaterin in Komarr and A Civil Campaign), a gay man (Ethan of Athos), and a pair of brothers, one of whom is disabled and the other a clone (Miles and Mark Vorkosigan), their cousin (Ivan Vorpatril) together with some less well educated characters (e.g., the bodyguard Roic and the runaway lad Jin)."
From the 'about' on the Hugo Awards website, "The Hugo Awards, presented annually since 1955, are science fiction’s most prestigious award. The Hugo Awards are voted on by members of the World Science Fiction Convention (“Worldcon”), which is also responsible for administering them". So I presume they should be judging SF.
The number one question I have is why are people submitting Fantasy to a SF award group and then bitching when SF people don't want to give awards to Fantasy?
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @06:41PM (1 child)
Seems like you have a bad case of "bucket crabs"! There really is no cure but to realize that it is only a right-wing talking point, and not grounded in reality at all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @07:09PM
They've infiltrated everywhere! Those commie leftists are everywhere trying to undermine our authority and turn our children gay!!! EVERYWHERE I SAY!
/s just in case
fucking loons can't handle modern society
(Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Thursday August 17 2017, @10:25AM (4 children)
Seriously? You complain about moderation and then post crap like the above?
Read the moderation guidelines [soylentnews.org]!
And those who modded you "insightful":
Or does that paragraph only apply to opinions that disagree with TMB?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday August 17 2017, @12:35PM (3 children)
I'll give a short answer here because this is an entirely different comment. Your other bitchfest has already been addressed.
A) That comment was entirely factual. Look at any area of culture that SJWs have infiltrated and taken over. Every last one has gone to shit in terms of quality.
B) Factual comments are not eligible for down-modding, even if they do hurt your feelings.
C) Even if you dispute the statement, a comment is not eligible for legit down-modding unless you can prove it factually incorrect or it otherwise hits some eligibility criteria. Like if I'd added ", you stupid cunt." to the end.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Thursday August 17 2017, @01:58PM (2 children)
I believe that using the term "SJW [wikipedia.org]" as a pejorative [dictionary.com] and not explaining yourself falls afoul of the moderation rules (specifically, "ad hominem" and "ridicule without backing it up"). As such, comments that do so are legitimate candidates for down-modding, irrespective of how the moderator feels about the comment.
Apparently, you believe that the moderation rules do not support that. I'm not sure why - maybe you think SJW is not a pejorative, or maybe you believe that you're allowed to apply a pejorative label to any group/activity as you see fit and that that in itself justifies the group/activity being factually SJW.
The good: we seem to agree that using pejorative terms can be warranted.
The bad: we definitely disagree on the barrier for "warranted".
The ugly: not there. Since both of us seem to be fed up with this discussion, likely both of us are going to stop going off-topic.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday August 17 2017, @03:23PM (1 child)
Scuse the tone up above. Coffee wasn't working very well this morning for some reason.
SJW is a pejorative, yes. It also has a pretty well-defined meaning when I use it though; if it didn't it wouldn't be a very good insult. In this case it was precisely the correct term to describe the groups I was speaking of.
I have no beef with run of the mill progressives being part of any culture they're able to contribute to. SJWs by definition though contribute primarily bigotry, thought policing, hatred, and exclusionism. None of which are desirable traits in a community of any kind. Well, maybe they're desirable in Daily-Stormer-type communities but not in the vast majority of western culture.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Sunday August 20 2017, @02:22PM
Aha! I am (relatively) unfamiliar with the term "SJW" - beyond seeing it used as a pejorative.
This definition is rather clear. I don't think I would like anyone that fits the description - we seem to be in full agreement there.
I seem to have misunderstood what you meant, sorry for that.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @04:45PM (4 children)
The norm in sci fi and other fictions now is called "Message Fiction" among writers (search that term); It's Political messaging dressed up as fiction. It used to be that the story was front and center and could stand on its own even if you didn't catch the political commentary woven into the plot, but now the messaging is front and center and there's a thin veil of sci-fi.
Sad puppies wanted to change this since ideology now trumps quality at Hugo awards.
Those who tell you otherwise are either ignorant or ideologically motivated.
The awards are now useless as game journalism, but unlike gamers, readers have no "let's players" to replace reviews and awards with. A real shame, the state of the world today. Let's hope the mindworm infestation passes soon.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @06:26PM (3 children)
Scifi has always been "message fiction", politics is simply the aggregate phenomenon of human social activity. Heilein's ideas at the time were 100% "political" with commentary on society's sexual puritanism (today's abortion) and socioeconomic structuring. Scifi is well known for pushing the race barriers, etc. etc.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 16 2017, @07:09PM (2 children)
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @08:50PM (1 child)
Looks like you replied to the wrong message, or are you trying to win an argument with a blanket statement that says nothing?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday August 17 2017, @12:36PM
Restating the obvious. And snickering.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.