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posted by LaminatorX on Monday April 13 2015, @11:30AM   Printer-friendly
from the Livejournal-still-works dept.

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."

 
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  • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday April 13 2015, @03:54PM

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Monday April 13 2015, @03:54PM (#169771)

    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.

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    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Vanderhoth on Monday April 13 2015, @04:07PM

    by Vanderhoth (61) on Monday April 13 2015, @04:07PM (#169783)

    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

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @04:16PM (#169787)

      > 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

        by Yog-Yogguth (1862) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday April 15 2015, @08:56AM (#170861) Journal

        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))