Every Puppy Has Its Day 4/16

What European writers call the Hugo Awards “hack” is getting international coverage. Today’s roundup features quotes from Polish and German articles… or as close as Google Translate can get.

There are geniuses who are mad, writers who are mad, and fans who are mad. No wonder there’s also a psychologist trying to analyze the Sad Puppies phenomenon. And if that doesn’t work, someone else has done a statistical analysis.

One writer thinks so many are alarmed by the controversy she needs to volunteer as a bodyguard —

Vonda McIntyre on Book View Cafe

“I will walk with you” – April 15

I’m distressed to see that some folks who were planning to come to Sasquan are thinking of skipping Worldcon this year.

Because they’re frightened.

I understand why people are frightened, given the racist, misogynistic, and dishonest screeds they’ve been subjected to. It isn’t — alas — unusual for verbal abuse to escalate into physical abuse; and anyway verbal abuse is no fun to begin with.

But I was thinking about what might help counterbalance the situation….

I will walk with you at Worldcon.

I’m not very fond of confrontation. I’m a courtesy 5’1? and my 67th birthday (how did that happen?!) is just after the convention and I’m walking with a hiking pole while recovering from a hiking fall, an injury that’s taking way longer to heal than when I was a pup.

On the other hand I’m a shodan in Aikido.

On the third hand, which I can have because I’m an SF writer, shodan — first degree black belt — is when you realize how much you still have to learn.

But I’m thinking that maybe it would make folks who feel threatened feel a little safer to have someone at their side, maybe even someone with a bunch o’ fancy ribbons fluttering from her name badge, even if that person is shorter, smaller, and older than they are, white-haired and not physically prepossessing. It’s another person’s presence.

 

Lou Antonelli on This Way to Texas

Two more scalps – April 16

Yesterday two people who previously didn’t mind having their names on the list and who are Hugo nominated decided withdraw the names. They are both young and probably afraid theircareers will be hurt. Quite frankly, I think it’s a futile gesture. Their flirtation with deviancy will never be forgiven by the SF establishment.

 

Jason V Brock on Facebook  – April 15

I feel sympathy for those trapped in the scenario who did nothing wrong, yet are suffering the consequences, when they should be able to enjoy themselves.

Additionally, people who take a side against someone should reconsider from the perspective of the folks that have been honored justly, and who do good work. In other words, there are people who have toiled for years building a reputation and then have the misfortune of an angry person/group trying to exact revenge, or tarnish everything (out of jealousy, I’d say, and a warped sense of reality). It’s not fair to block or unfriend people that genuinely did nothing but stand up and say “But I didn’t do anything bad.” These are the actions of cowards. People need to have cooler heads and try to understand things better.

 

Alastair Reynolds on Approaching Pavonis Mons by balloon

“On the present Hugo mess and while I still want one” – April 15

The odd thing is – or perhaps it isn’t odd at all – is that the ongoing trouble with the Puppies only makes me feel more warmly disposed to the Hugos. I certainly should have voted. It would have taken a lot more of us to outweigh the block voting effect of the slate ballot, but that’s no argument not to have tried. As I’ve mentioned earlier, I’ve been striving to read a lot more short fiction this year, and I already feel a lot better informed about the state of the field in 2015 than in recent years. And yes, while the Hugo award has been damaged – it’s hard to see a way around that, irrespective of what happens later in the summer – I would still like to win one eventually. I hope the award can weather this storm, and continue on as it should be – a prized part of SF’s collective heritage.

 

Marcin Zwierzchowski on Geek Blog (Polish)

“Nagrody fantastyczne jest problem”  – April 8

[Google Translate from Polish to English] The latter is the nail in the coffin of awards plebiscite. This year, it hit a huge force in Hugo, where most nominations seized authors connected with the movement Sad Puppies. The initiators of action rightly pointed out that in recent years, this prestigious award has become a mouthpiece through which the environment was manifest on the strength of its tolerance and diversity.  Instead, the text of the loudest discussed whether the nominees and the winners are more women or men, whether it is enough ethnic minorities, whether they are homosexual, etc., Etc.

 

Der Standard

“Was George R.R. Martin zum rechten ‘Hack’ der Hugo Awards sagt” – April 16

[Google Translate from German to English] In the past, it managed to get individual groups to influence the nomination lists on their behalf: Be it the followers of Scientology -Gründers and (often forgotten) SF-author L. Ron Hubbard. Be it the well-organized fandom of “Doctor Who”, which manages year after year in the short film category, to give the impression that there is nothing price worthier throughout the film, television and web video world as the British endless series. But such initiatives were always based on individual works – there has never been such a comprehensive campaign, moreover, an ideological background.

 

George R. R. Martin on Not A Blog

“On the Darkling Plain” – April 15

My friend Janice Gelb, long time worldcon volunteer and SMOF, has suggested that the only thing we can do at this point is abolish the Hugo Awards altogether. When I first heard that notion, I dismissed it out of hand. Some good will, some civility, a mutual exchange of ideas, and surely we could find a way to salvage the situation.

I am no longer convinced of that. The Sad Puppies are digging in and doubling down, and so is worldcon fandom. Meanwhile, off in the cesspools, the Rabid Puppies grow ever more rabid. Nuclear options are being seriously considered, and Vox Day has apparently threatened that if NO AWARD wins in any category, he will see to it that no award is ever given in that category again.

My first inclination was to dismiss that threat as so much toxic wind. But I am not so sure. According to FILE 770 https://file770.com/?p=21877 there have been 1352 new Supporting Memberships purchased this month, an unprecedented number. Very few of these purchases, I fear, were motivated by a sincere desire to support WorldCon. No, all these new supporting members are plonking down their money for a vote on the Hugos.

Ah, but which side do they represent? Are these members of traditional fandom, signing up to take back their awards? Are these Sad Puppy supporters, anxious to vote their slate to victory? Are these all NO AWARDers? Or maybe these are the Vox Day fans. Beale seems to have much more control over his followers than Correia and Torgensen do over theirs… the ballot actually has more Rabid Puppies than Sad ones. Could it be that Vox Day has successfully roused the GamerGate bogeyman that he was been threatening us with? No one knows. Unless…

I think it is All of the Above.

And as for me… I don’t know right now. On odd numbered days, I lean toward opting out of SasQuan entirely. Stay home, work on the book, I don’t need this grief. On even numbered days, I am determined to go… and to go BIG. Take the Hugo Losers Party back. I started it, after all. And this year, so far as the Hugos are concerned, we are all going to be losers.

 

George R. R. Martin on Not A Blog

“Joining Sasquan” – April 16

I have been going to Worldcons for a long time. My icon is a picture of me at Torcon II, the 1973 Worldcon in Toronto, where I lost the very first John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Wasn’t I cute? It was my second Worldcon, following on Noreascon I in Boston in 1971. (I missed LA in 1972).

 

Brandon Morse on EveryJoe

“Exclusive Interview With Sad Puppies’ Brad Torgersen”  – April 16

EJ: In a blog post, Doctor Who critical historian Philip Sandifer recently said that “the moral duty of progressive voices to form a blocking majority, and to loudly admit that fandom as it stands is broken, and that any work proclaimed to be the best of the year by a fandom this broken is demeaned by the association.” Do you think the outrage against Sad Puppies is ultimately because you broke the “blocking majority” that Progressives feel is their moral duty to maintain?

Torgersen: I feel like this is very much about totems. I wrote a long article today, talking about tribalism, and how Worldcon Fandom has reacted to having outside tribe(s) coming to “take away” the totem that is the Hugo Award. We’re committing near-sacrilege when we do that. But the chief problem is that the Hugos self-label as being the award for everybody while Worldcon wants to keep the total deciding process internal to itself; no out-tribe people allowed. An award for all, decided by the few. That’s the core of the problem. So, if the progressives feel a duty to keep out-tribe people from participating, I feel a duty to put a hand to their faces and say, “No, you don’t get to decide who is and is not a fan, or who is and is not worthy.”

 

Maureen O’Danu on Am I The Only One Dancing

“The Psychology of Hugo Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies” – April 16

Larry Correia’s public attitude makes it pretty clear that he felt that he deserved to win and that the Hugo he was nominated for was stolen from him, rather than simply won by another contender. (Larry denies this verbally, but one of the first rules of psychology is that when there is a conflict between words and actions, believe the actions.) The subjective nature of literary awards makes this a not uncommon problem. In any award where winning is at least partially a matter of opinion instead of mathematics, the language of robbery holds sway. “He was robbed” “She stole that award” “How on earth did he take that away from her.” From ice dancing to dressage to debate to writing, any ranked creative competition is going to generate these sorts of claims.

Correia took this further, speculating on the basis of negative comments he had received from either fans or writers (he has never specified) that he was specifically denied his award because of his political views. He has said that he believes has been specifically denied because he owns a gun store, is Mormon, is conservative, or all or some combination of the above.

It is common for people who feel entitled to look for unjust reasons for exclusion from something they feel they are owed. Afraid to look within, they will search for any confirmations they can find that someone, somewhere has unjust views of them, and then work long and hard to build a case that these views somehow formed the basis of discrimination. The logical leaps and sifting for scant evidence that make up this process are the roots of paranoid beliefs and are pretty common among lots of people, not just people who have diagnoses.

 

Nathaniel Givens on Difficult Run

“Some Sad Puppy Data Analysis” – April 14

If the last chart depicted clearly the reasons why social justice warriors are so opposed to SP / RP, this chart depicts clearly the reasons why SP came into being in the first place. What it shows is the average Goodreads review for the Hugo best novel winners (in red) and nominees (in blue) for every year going back to the first Hugo awards awarded in 1953.8 The most interesting aspect of the chart, from the standpoint of understanding where SP is coming from, is the fairly extreme gap between the scores of the nominees and the winners in the last few years, with the nominees showing much higher scores than the winners. Here it is again, with the data points in question circled:

Let me be clear about what I think this shows. It does not show that the last few Hugo awards are flawed or that recent Hugo winners have been undeserving. There is no law written anywhere that says that average Goodreads score is the objective measure of quality. That is not my point. All those data points show is that there has been a significant difference of opinion between the Hugo voters who picked the winners and the popular opinion. What’s more, they shows that this gap is a relatively recent phenomenon. Go back 10 or 20 years and the winners tend to cluster near the top of the nominees, showing that the Hugo voting process and the Goodreads audience were more or less in tune. But starting a few years ago, a chasm suddenly opens up….

Closing Thoughts

I still think that Sad Puppies have a legitimate point. Their goal was to get a few new faces out there who otherwise wouldn’t have been considered. I think that’s an admirable goal, and I think that there are some folks on the ballot today who (1) deserve to be there and (2) wouldn’t ever have gotten there without Sad Puppies. And I know that even some of the critics of SP3 agree with that assessment (because they told me so).

 

 

Eric Flint

“Some comments on the Hugos and other SF awards” – April 16

[A very long and multifaceted post – this is just the first paragraph.]

I’ve been doing my best to stay away from the current ruckus over the Hugo Awards, but it’s now spread widely enough that it’s spilled onto my Facebook page, and it’s bound to splatter on me elsewhere as well. It’s also been brought to my attention that Breitbart’s very well-trafficked web site—never famous for the accuracy of its so-called “reporting”—has me listed as one of the supposedly downtrodden conservative and/or libertarian authors oppressed by the SF establishment. Given my lifelong advocacy of socialism—and I was no armchair Marxist either, but committed twenty-five years of my life to being an activist in the industrial trade unions—I find that quite amusing.

 

Ian Randal Strock

“Foolishly jumping into the Hugo mishegas” – April 16

So, to bring this back to the Hugo Awards: we have something which a significant number of people value. And it’s something that has a set of operating instructions, which can be followed and gamed. Now, after sixty years of giving out Hugo Awards, some of the voters have realized that acting in concert gives them power within the system, and the Puppies Party has been born and instantly proven its viability.

Many people who are not part of the Puppies Party are decrying their actions, rending their garb, declaiming their love for the Hugos, and announcing their hatred for those people who would dare to “hijack” the award with concerted effort. The Puppies Party appears to have issued an ultimatum that they will keep doing what they’ve done in the future; I don’t doubt they can (I do doubt the value of doing it, but not the ability to do it).

So, to those opposed to the Puppies Party, I can only say: welcome to party politics. If you don’t like what they’ve done, you have a few choices:

1. You can do away with the Hugo Awards, simply retire them as a concept.

2. You can change the rules to make party politics impossible (though off the top of my head, I can’t see an easy way to do so).

3. You can embrace the not-so-modern paradigm and form your own political party.

You can hate the concept of politics within the “purity” of the Hugo Awards, but now that a party has been formed and started operation, complaining about its existence will be a futile exercise. The Puppies Party has the power of unity that those who oppose it don’t yet have. So, who among you is going to step up and start the conversation to form your party?

And for our European viewers, none of this thinking is to deny the validity of the parliamentary system. Perhaps the Hugo Awards may evolve into a multi-party system. Although the awards, as winner-take-all prizes, do tend to lend themselves more to a two-party system.

 

Larry Correia on Monster Hunter Nation

“I’m not Vox Day” – April 16

I cannot disown what I do not own.

I neither condone nor defend any of his public statements. I did not make them.

Of course I do not like some of the things he has said.

Do you think the existence of Rabid Puppies has somehow made my life easier?

I’m not going to burn anyone in effigy. Stop asking.

I’m not going to condemn anyone by association. Stop asking.

 

Brad R. Torgersen

“Sad Puppies: We are not Rabid Puppies” – April 16

I’ll state it again for emphasis: we are not Rabid. None of us wants to burn the Hugos down. We want the Hugos to live up their reputation as the preeminent award in the combined field of Science Fiction & Fantasy. We want Worldcon to be an actually diverse thing with authors and fans participating from across the spectrum, without having to worry about litmus tests or being in the correct groups. We don’t want people to have to be chameleons who hide who they are — or what they like or what they create — because it’s not what the “cool kids” agree with.

The objectives of Sad Puppies 3 have been simple and consistent:

  • Use the democratic selection system of the Hugo awards.
  • No “quiet” logrolling. Make it transparent.
  • Boost authors, editors, and works — regardless of political persuasion.
  • Bring recognition to people who’ve been long overlooked.
  • Get some good promotion for new folks coming up in the field.
  • Have fun!

 

Kate Paulk on Mad Genius Club

“There Hugo Again” – April 6

Claiming that being nominated because people who agree with Vox Day or Larry Correia or Brad Torgerson, or any other person you care to mention voted for their works is some kind of horrible taint is beyond the pale. The more of that kind of totalitarian secret police tactic that’s used, the more I want to stand up and shout, “I am Vox Day.” Or “I am Larry Correia.” Or… you get the point.

Because we are all Vox Day. Or Larry Correia. Or Brad Torgerson. Or anyone else who dares to disagree with the opinions of the would-be power-brokers. If we are not, then Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia, Freedom is Slavery, and two plus two equals five.

 

Sanford Begley on Otherwhere Gazette

“I’m sick and tired of the Hugos”

I’m a 57 year old politically disgusted heterosexual male. I can more or less claim white. Family stories say there are a few other things in there, but none particularly show so, who cares? Now that you know I have privilege you can dismiss me and move on to a more diverse writer. Or stay if you aren’t a bigot. I’m good either way.

 

 

Miguel on Gun Free Zone

“The Hugo Awards, Social Justice Warriors and Sad Puppies” – April 16

Oh dear gods of the pantheon! You would have thought the Barbarians broke into the Vestal Temple and proceeded to rape the curtains and burn the Virgins. First came the accusations of ballot stuffing which went down in flames when it was pointed out that the rules for nominations were followed to a fault. Then it came the generalized accusations of “gaming the rules” to introduce a “Conservative, all-male heterosexual, redneck, icky” slate which died under quick examination of the slate as it was actually more varied in every concept than previous Hugo nominations. Then it came to be that the works were not true SciFi/Fantasy or did not conform to what SciFi should be, but somebody just pointed out that previously nominated works like If You Were A Dinosaur My Love and the whole cookie went down in crumbs.

But something was puzzling the SJW clique: After all the attacks, the Sad Puppies not only were not cowed, they had the balls of actually laugh at them! How dare they! So they went even stupider attacking individual authors. Larry Correia is an official White Anglo-Saxon Supremacist (I reckon that you will find the Portuguese last name in the Mayflower list), death threats were issued which is funny as hell when Larry is the size of a shoggoth, knocked down cows for fun a-lo-Mongo in his youth and is a firearms instructor with possibly more guns and ammo in his basement than many police forces in rural America…and some urban areas too.

 

Alan Davis on LewRockwell.com

“Science Fiction – The Culture War’s Line in the Sand”  – April 16

Why is science fiction–as a book genre–dying, while simultaneously conquering Hollywood, television, and video games?

Over the last twenty or thirty years, the science fiction publishing industry has changed.  Now, all of the major publishers, save one, take the political viewpoints of writers into account before publishing their works.  And if that writer happens to be libertarian, or conservative, or holds any views that don’t mesh neatly with the left-wing attitudes of the editors and publishers, then the only publisher willing to read their material is Baen.  Political correctness has become the key to science fiction, so excellent writers who don’t fit the mold are almost completely excluded from publishing and awards.

 

Ty Burr on Boston Globe

“Trouble brews in the world of sci-fi writing” – April 16

What’s at the bottom of the Sad Puppy complaint? Exclusion, it turns out. Responding to Martin’s comments, Correia blogged of his own memories of being a youthful sci-fi outcast at the Worldcon party: “The cool kids told their cool stories to the other cool kids, and lorded it over those who weren’t part of the In Joke. Honestly, it reminded me of high school, and I was the poor fat kid who had inadvertently pissed off the mean girls.” To which Martin responded, “Surely you have been around fandom long enough to realize that there are no cool kids. We’re all the fat kids, the nerds, the computer geeks, the guys who always had their nose in a book, who loved comics and played chess and couldn’t get a date for a prom.”

This isn’t really about right versus left, in other words, but feeling like you belong. And while there’s a productive conversation to be had when the volume is kept low, the voices on the sidelines, anonymous and otherwise, just pour gasoline on the flames.

More and more, I’m convinced that the Internet is toxic.

The only thing to do, I think — and I’m talking about more than just the Sad Puppies and Gamergate — is to marginalize the crazies on both sides. Which means, in practice, marginalizing the crazies on your side. We have to start making a stand for a big, sane middle and allowing everyone on the spectrum of that middle to express emotions without going on the attack. Anyone who calls names, responds from anger, hate, or fear — block them. Ignore them. Do not feed the trolls.

 

Jason Sanford

On screaming “We’re not VD!” while ignoring your relationship with VD – April 16

I don’t need Larry and Brad or anyone else to say they’re not Vox Day. I know that. Everyone knows VD is responsible for his own actions and statements.

But what many people suspect is that Larry and Brad worked with VD on all this. And based on the evidence, it’s difficult to draw any other conclusion.

For example, Brad ran this year’s Sad Puppies campaign and posted their voting slate on February 1. I can’t tell you the exact time he posted the slate, but the first comment on the post appeared at 8:40 pm, followed quickly by many more.

Vox Day posted his Rabid Puppies ballot on February 2nd. Again, I don’t know the exact time but the comments began coming in a little after 1 am. Depending on the time zone settings of these two sites, that means as little as a few hours separated the posting of the Sad and Rabid Puppies slates.

But hey, let’s be generous and say an entire day separated the launch of their “separate” campaigns. If there was no coordination between the two campaigns that means in less than a day VD read all the stories on the Sad Puppies slate, decided which to discard and which to add to his own slate, and launched his campaign.

Oh, and he also found time to contact the artist who created the Sad Puppies logo and have that artist create a similar but different logo for the Rabid Puppies. (The artist is Lee Madison, who uses the name Artracoon on his art. He even set up a site to sell shirts with both Sad and Rabid Puppies logos.)

If it’s possible to do all that in such a short time frame without coordinating the two campaigns, I’d love to hear how it was done.

 

 

Jim C. Hines on Facebook

Another Hugo Proposal:

Three Hugos for the Mil-SF and their space marines,

Seven for the grimdark-lords in their halls of blood,

Nine for Mortal Fans doomed to blog,…

One for Neil Gaiman on his dark throne

In the Land of Worldcon where the Shadows lie.

 

 

Unpaid ad from Fandom Prime:

Kitten+in+Mail

Hugo Justice Warriors If some Puppy has been calling you an SJW lately, maybe you’d rather identify yourself as a Hugo Justice Warrior. Click through to see our noble shield on a variety of products.

Proudly stand up to the enemies of fair play and quality SF&F by flaunting our shield. The Latin motto means “I will fear no puppies.” either sad or rabid.  I’m sure Heinlein, a man of principle, would have approved.

Considering the merchandise is being marketed to fans, one of the funniest parts is that T-shirts only go up to 3X….

 

113 thoughts on “Every Puppy Has Its Day 4/16

  1. Speaking of the Hugos, someone just sent me this link. I didn’t read it through, but gather that it repeats toward the end.

    http://shorttext.com/63133fd9

    It is funnier, however, than you may guess.

    Among the traditions of the oldest school in this hemisphere, a school so ancient that Harvard was (I’m serious) founded in good part to give its first graduating class a place to continue their studies, is something called “Declamation,” or, for some “Public Declamation” and “Prize Declamation.” I did all three, though the latter two were competitive and optional.

    I was also CO of the school drill team, which drill team posted the national and state colors before, oh yeah, Public and Prize Declamation.

    So picture this, a 15 year old Kratman, in fatigues and wearing a chrome helmet, mounts the rostum, after posting the colors, and begins, “Now I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war…” and this in a school so Boston proper that nothing else really compares.

    “Memories…light the corners of my mind….misty water colored Meemmmmoooorrriesss….”

  2. You think the idea that military members should hold themselves to a higher standard is “silly”?

    If you think it’s okay to resort to physical violence after someone insults you, then you need to work on your EoF and RoE. Way to show those Army Values, Sir.

  3. No, what it is is that I disagree that accepting insults to ones integrity IS holding oneself to a higher value. Rather, I think it is accepting a very low value. Obviously, here, we have very different and probably irreconcilable views of what is a value. This does not surprise, really.

  4. Compare Nathaniel Givens Venn Diagrams of 2015 to 4-time Hugo winner Frank Wu’s of 2001-2005.

    That, my friends on any side of any aisle, is what is called a smoking gun.

  5. Other people can’t change my integrity. Why do I care if they impugn it? Why would I stoop to something so crass as promising physical violence? It’s not like punching someone is going to change their opinion of my integrity.

  6. Let’s contrast

    “It’s the one thing a person really owns, you see. Your life, your wife, your health and your wealth; those can all be lost or taken from you without recourse. Integrity is uniquely yours, hence uniquely precious.”

    with

    “Because impugning it devalues it?”

    If it’s uniquely yours, then how does someone else impugning it “devalue” it? It’s yours. No one else can take it, make it less, make it more, etc. etc. Your integrity is based on YOUR actions. Someone talking shit about it doesn’t change it, only your actions do.

  7. Imagine last year’s Hugo winner for best novel wrote a blog post about an allegorical restaurant where blacks and homosexuals randomly raped white women and children and where women were morally inferior.

    Imagine best novella went to a guy who forbid speculation on the racial identities of the Boston Marathon bombers and then an hour later bet it was non-whites.

    Imagine best novella went to a woman who was once startled by a non-white speaking english without an accent, an Asian playing a violin and who allowed herself to be publicly bullied by a couple of racial ideologues for using the term “cracka ass cracka” in a fictional story and revised it, although it was already finished and published online.

    Imagine best short story was about NAMBLA and GLAAD raining all over nuclear families.

    Imagine best related work was won by a man who wrote a blog post asserting women were moral cowards in an historic time frame.

    Imagine best semiprozine was won by a magazine which review-censored black women and published a men’s-only and heterosexuals-only anthology of SFF together with essays centered around group defamation.

    Imagine the Campbell was won by a person who declared S. Africa a black supremacy.

    Imagine best professional artist was won by a woman who specialized in SFF art with white characters.

    What is that?

    #HugosDitchYourRacists.

  8. Alexvdl: Is this debate really about integrity? It’s abuse that Kratman won’t take, expressions that slight the quality of his integrity.

  9. Mike,

    That’s what I don’t understand. Nothing I, you or anyone else says can change the quality of his integrity. Only Tom himself can effect the quality of his integrity.

  10. Let’s not.

    Again, Alex, if you do not feel it I cannot explain it. It is an emotional and instinctive thing, as man is an emotional and instinctive creature. That is how he is; that is how I am. (And Spock was an artificial and impossible literary construct.) Now it has implications across the wide world, which it seems I cannot make you see either. Oh, well.

    Moreover, I have no obligation to try, especially given the rocky soil. Just take my word for it, to me, it is mortal.

  11. @Kratman,

    “Fortunately, there are blacks and hispanics and asians who are having none of this safe space bullshit, who may save us from our inherent racism. Sadly, they cannot save the SJWs from theirs.”

    Here here! Your comments have been a breath of fresh air. The integrity ones especially.

    @DB,

    “I’m also getting tired of all the disingenuous claims that this is all about candidates on the ballots that some people didn’t like. ”

    Given that I and others have corrected this before, you are either being obtuse or are not listening. Or look at yesterdays comments about “whiffs” of puppies.

    @Alexander,

    “Well I for one am unimpressed by Nigel’s moral compass. Personally, I don’t have to wait until someone is hanging from a rope to get a feel for the perpetrator’s character.”

    A cheer for this too. Evidently puppies do lynchings, except they don’t, and we have to wait until a lynching to determine their character. He’s being absolutely astoundingly dumb.

    @Alexvi,

    First you would be wrong. Look up “fighting words” in US law and second I’m not sure what a court would say in such a case matters to some of us.

    @Nigel,

    “I know what she did, but I don’t want to go insulting your integrity without Vonda McIntyre here to protect me.”

    For those watching, note Nigel _knows_ what she-who-shall-not-be-named did was racist. What he’s unwilling to do is admit it. So he passive aggressively fires back while ignoring the claim. Again, if you are going to select _against_ racists in this fight, you would do well to stick with the puppies.

    @Kratman,

    You have missed that part of the thread much earlier. Evidently they believe there is no such difference. In so doing I don’t think they realize that they’ve vacated any right to self defense and have proposed a society where only instant continuous violence is possible.

    Forward thinking and all of that.

  12. “By the way, there is a difference between a threat and a (conditional) warning. Really.”

    Indeed. Of course, the two *can* overlap, and in many cases, do.

    For example, when you have already struck out against someone, and then declare that any reprisal they make will result in massive counter-reprisal; that is both threat and warning.

    Or, for example, when you declare that a vaguely-defined activity that, to most people, would *not* be grounds for physical assault is, when you are the person involved.

    Especially, in both cases, coming from someone who either delights in not making clear what they truly want (Mr. Beale, who goes from “I got what I want” to “You don’t know what I want, and you’ll never know, but give me what I say I want, or else”) or waves around vague definitions and has already expressed a willingness to disrespect other people’s boundaries, but demands that their own be respected or else.

    I am not surprised to see the same kind of behavior emerging on the personal level that we see on the larger level in response to, say, no-awarding: “I get to define the rules, and if I don’t get what I want, I will escalate beyond what anyone else considers reasonable.”

  13. @Steve,

    You are straight up lying again. You have been present with what is the right course of action. Vote for people you like. Don’t hound people with guilt by association. Don’t threaten to burn it down.

    And oh, I agree with Sarah:
    I am Vox Day.

  14. ‘Evidently puppies do lynchings,’

    You do lynchings we do gulags. Such is the psychoscape of modern sf culture wars.

    ‘For those watching, note Nigel _knows_ what she-who-shall-not-be-named did was racist.’

    Goddammit, she oppressed white male writers with that reading challenge! She oppressed them so bad! And it took so long for white male writers to get any appreciation in the literary world! Now they’re stuck at the back of the literary bus again thanks to that reading challenge!

  15. Nigel I believe the charge was racial incitement, not oppression.

    Please try and address the actual issues instead of making stuff up in your head.

  16. ‘Don’t hound people with guilt by association.’
    ‘I am Vox Day.’

    ‘Don’t associate us with that bad person from whom we are half-heartedly distancing ourselves and yet now completely identifying with.’ SP/RP in a nutshell.

  17. Nigel: I think you’re confused. She-who-shall-not-be-named isn’t the one with the reading challenge. Who has already been named repeatedly. But in that slighting way that if the commenter himself was addressed in such a manner it is not clear he would be satisfied with a verbal response. Such is consistency.

  18. ‘Nigel I believe the charge was racial incitement, not oppression.’

    Don’t let her off the hook that easily! She tried to racially incite the oppression of white male writers! First you get people challenging themselves to read something that isn’t by white-male writers! Next? BIBLIOCAUST!

  19. ‘She-who-shall-not-be-named isn’t the one with the reading challenge.’

    Mea culpa. So that means there’s two of them? I think they might have white male writers outnumbered.

  20. @TheManBesmirchingAFineAuthorsNameByUsingHimAsAPseudonym,

    “@Steve,

    You are straight up lying again. You have been present with what is the right course of action. Vote for people you like. Don’t hound people with guilt by association. Don’t threaten to burn it down.”

    I fail to see where you get the idea that I am lying.

    I am going to do #1. I am also, as is my right, going to vote “No Award” when I think I have run out of works deserving of a Hugo, and not list the ones below that – e.g. “Parliament” or Vox Day as an editor.

    I have not hounded anyone with guilt by association.

    And playing by the rules is not “burning it down” — unless you also feel that the slte-providers were “burning it down.”

    And if you are Vox Day, sir, I feel sorry for you.

  21. “Again, Alex, if you do not feel it I cannot explain it. It is an emotional and instinctive thing, as man is an emotional and instinctive creature. That is how he is; that is how I am. ”

    And here I thought Man was a creature of thinking and logic, of letters and sums. I didn’t realize you thought so lowly of yourself. My bad.

  22. As to integrity, the only one with the power to detract or devalue one’s integrity is the individual themselves. You value integrity by acting with integrity. You detract from your integrity by acting without integrity. Someone impugning your integrity cannot devalue your integrity unless you cheapen it by acting in a manner beneath that integrity. The only actions you control are your own. If you have integrity, you know in your heart whether you’ve acted in an appropriate manner and that should be sufficient.

  23. Heh. Nigel is using the definition of racism that says it’s impossible to be racist against white people. How cute.

  24. Someone finally wrote something in this omnishambles which has shocked me:
    can it really be true that Alastair Reynolds has never won a Hugo? The man whose work–more than any other writer–embodies the spirit of Hugo Gernsback’s vision has never received a Hugo Award?

    I was agog when Wilson’s “Dr. Identity” failed to nominated for a PKD. I was aghast when 2312 was denied a Clarke. I am alexic.

  25. @Alexvi,

    “And here I thought Man was a creature of thinking and logic, of letters and sums. I didn’t realize you thought so lowly of yourself. My bad.”

    He is both. This is a thing you do not understand.

    @Mike,

    You have set up a system where we can’t talk about people who behaved in a certain way that is being discussed. You made the rule that she could be not named not I. She behaved in reprehensible behavior that _we_ are being accused of and per the normal double standards didn’t get a bit of _group_ disapproval for that. I’d happily use her name. I’ve understand your post to say that it isn’t allowed in the earlier thread. Is it or is it not?

  26. Well, after several days of people speaking but not doing much listening to each other, this debate seems to be deteriorating… There’s nothing new on the table and there’s only so much reasonable talking two sets of people can do on opposite sides of a wall, without repeating themselves. It will be a long time to the WorldCon.

  27. Then you thought wrong, Alex. Man doesn’t usually reason, he rationalizes, he emotes. At best, he uses reason to defend his rationalizations and emotions. I invite your attention to recovering former liberal Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind. Really. Go read it.

  28. Look above, Robert, at the overall result of lack of integrity and the devaluation of integrity. If you think it doesn’t have severe public impact you haven’t been paying attention.

    But none of that matters. At a purely emotional level, if someone is unwise enough to insult my integrity to my face, it is going to be most unfortunate. If someone does it on line it will be less unfortunate, but I feel no need for restraint there, either, nor any need to bow to current silly-assed pieties. In this, the Blessed Fallaci is my guide and inspiration.

  29. ” All of it – ALL OF IT – stems from a lack of integrity which, itself, stems from failure to understand its importance or to downplay that importance.”

    Nonsense. And anyone pitching a simple, obvious solution to the world’s problems is either a charlatan, a fool, or deceiving themselves.

    If you presume perfect people, you can make any system work; decrying “OMG, all the world’s problems come from imperfect people” is at best useless.

    I won’t be testing you to your face, Tom, because I believe you’re sincere in your folly; at least, I presume that by “integrity” you mean something approaching the conventional usage of the term, and not some puffed-up ego defense of “Whatever I don’t like.”

    If it’s the latter, then you’re using integrity as an excuse to justify your lashing out, and you deserve thereby no respect.

  30. GK: Holding a referendum on her character is what I am banning. Doing it without naming her is the same thing.

    If for some unimaginable reason she had joined in here and was verbally brawling with the rest of you, the way VD has chosen to do, I would not feel as if my blog was being used as a billboard to insult absent third parties.

    Likewise if TNH had done so, unlikely as that would be.

    It may help clear up one point if I tell you I asked VD if he was concerned about the verbiage being thrown around here, and he did not consider it a problem. That doesn’t mean I am not going to apply my own ideas about moderating comments, whether directed at VD or somebody else.

  31. Mr. Kratman, given that your own behavior indicates whether or not you exhibit integrity, no one else can diminish or devalue YOUR integrity by their behavior except YOU. You either behave with integrity or you don’t. If someone impugns your integrity falsely, that in no way, shape or form reflects on your behavior in and of itself.

    You apparently didn’t understand what I wrote, given your earlier comment directed at me. I most certainly am paying attention. There’s a definite lack of maturity on all sides. There are a lot of tall children holding forth on this, which is scarcely surprising, given that so many involved here are comfortably anonymous and need not fear actually having to support their utterances in any meaningful way.

    I thank Mr. Glyer for his patience with all of us.

  32. “Steven, you never fail to amaze with your lack of understanding. really. It’s a talent in you.”

    I am overwhelmed by your specificity, and the deep understanding and analysis you bring to your retorts; it is truly impressive.

    However, we are now far afield from the subject matter of this blog, or this discussion, so if you’re content to let it be, so shall I.

  33. ‘Nigel is using the definition of racism that says it’s impossible to be racist against white people.’

    While you’re using a formulation that attempts to minimise, marginalise and silence anyone who isn’t a white person! How tediously common.

  34. Wait, is She Who Must Not Be Named Requires Hate? Why didn’t you say so? I have absolutely no hesitation in fully embracing the simplistic but compelling idea that she and TB are two sides of the same coin, and would equally abhor any attempt by that person to game the Hugos with a slate of her own.

  35. ‘At a purely emotional level, if someone is unwise enough to insult my integrity to my face, it is going to be most unfortunate’

    I think this is what you might call passive-belligerent.

  36. Well, I first noticed it when, in terms of integration and block busting, you failed to distinguish between an address and a lifestyle and neighborhood ethos, along with not noticing how much easier a time of it your father was likely to have than was, say, Ben Carson’s mom. In this particular case, though, how you can look at, say that 54 billion into sub-Saharan Africa, and the 52 billion out and into foreign banks, and not see that as an integrity issue…well…I am speechless.

  37. I know Vonda McIntyre was joking, but this is the first time I am actually nervous about security at a con, what with people vaguely threatening violence for being disrespected, an attitude which will get you a lot of understanding and admiration in a Sicilian jail. I’m not going (because I can’t afford to, not because I don’t want to), but I have friends who will, and don’t envy whoever is in charge of organising security at Sasquan.

  38. “I think this is what you might call passive-belligerent.”

    I believe you are correct.

    Given that both here and in other places Mr. Kratman has expressed utter disdain for “safe(r) spaces” (to the point of (I hope) merely expressing detailed fantasies about ways to violate them so as to cause maximal distress to people in them), and people like Mr. Beale appear to think the world is their playground, it looks like it boils down to a simple “might makes right” — “My (integrity/slate of nominees/etc.) must be respected because otherwise you won’t like the consequences, but if I am willing to accept the consequences, I can do to you whatever I want.”

    At some level, this is correct; though how anyone who believes it (or those who agree with them) get off on describing anyone else’s work as “nihilistic” is then beyond me.

  39. “In this particular case, though, how you can look at, say that 54 billion into sub-Saharan Africa, and the 52 billion out and into foreign banks, and not see that as an integrity issue…well…I am speechless.”

    Quick clue, if this was directed at me: There’s a huge gap between “Thing X is an integrity problem” and “All of it – ALL OF IT – stems from a lack of integrity which, itself, stems from failure to understand its importance or to downplay that importance.”

    Just because one A is B does not mean that all A are B. Got it? I am not arguing, nor have I ever argued, that there were not integrity issues in the world. I am arguing that blaming everything on a lack of integrity is foolish, because it causes people to seek solutions only to that problem.

    If I believed your point, since I believe that some of your positions are problems in the world, I would have to presume a lack of integrity on your part — as, apparently, you presume it in others.

    I do not; I believe, as I’ve said, you’re sincere in your errors.

  40. “No one’s been stupid enough to test me to my face in a very long time”

    Ooooo… get you!

    I’m sorry, are we meant to be taking this sort of nonsense seriously or something? I’m fairly sure the only outcome of somebody ‘testing’ you face to face at a science fiction convention and you retaliating would be a quick ride in the back of a police car and a conversation with a desk sergeant that included a phrase like, ‘Dude it’s just f’king science fiction, calm the hell down…’

  41. Only one good way for you to find out, Daveon. And you can try, if you like.

    By the way, it’s not about sci fi. Really not. Go write on the blackboard 5000000000 times, “I will not mistake a trivial thing (sci fi) for one that is non-trivial.”

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