aka It Was On Fire When I Lifted My Leg On it
Live from Arcadia, it’s File 770 in the middle of Saturday Night! Jim C. Hines, Eleanor Arnason, Vox Day, and other voices from the blogosphere have their say about the fate of the Hugo Awards. (Title credits go to File 770 consulting editors of the day Steve Moss and Laura Resnick.)
Jim C. Hines
Choosing “Sides” – April 25
Part of my anger at Torgersen and Correia is because I feel like they deliberately encouraged this Us vs. Them mentality in order to win support and votes. They invented an evil cabal of “Them,” then rallied people to join their side against this fictitious enemy. Which only increases the abuse and the hatred. And please note: I’m angry at them as individuals, not because they’re conservative, or because of their views on gun control, or because they might have a different religious belief than I do. I’m angry because whatever problems were out there, these two individuals actively made them worse, and they hurt a great many people in the process. Themselves included.
Fandom is not two distinct sides. It’s a bunch of people who like things in a really big genre, a genre that has guns and spaceships and dinosaurs and dragons and magic and manly men and genderfluid protagonists and grittiness and erotica and humor and hard-core feminism and sexism and racism and hope and stereotypes and anger and messages and politics and fluff and were-jaguars and superheroes and so much more.
Eleanor Arnason
“More About the Hugo Hooroosh” – April 24
I was reading George Martin’s Not a Blog and noticed something. Larry Correia was up for a Campbell Award for best new writer in 2011. He didn’t get it and — per him — at a bad time at Worldcon. Brad Torgerson was up for a Campbell and a Hugo in 2012 and got neither. But you are only eligible for a Campbell for two years after you first publish. It looks as if both these guys had fast and very promising starts to their careers. (A Campbell is not chopped liver. Being up for a Hugo a year or two after you first publish is not so bad. In addition, Correia was on the New York Times bestseller list in 2011.) This is Puppy # 3 this year, which means Puppy #1 was in 2013. Okay, two years after not getting the Campbell, Correia began an attack on the Hugos, because he felt the selection process was unfair. I don’t know if Torgerson joined Puppydom in its first year or a year later. In either case, he was campaigning against the Hugo a year or two after he was first up for the Campbell and Hugo. This seems to show a huge impatience. It wasn’t as if these guys watched the Hugo process for ten or twenty years and decided it was unfair. They decided this almost as soon as they were published.
I have been a Hugo nominee once, 25 years after I was first published. When I got the Tiptree Award, almost 20 years after I was first published, people assumed it was for my first novel. No, I’d had three novels previously published, but they more or less sank like stones. It was frustrating and angering and depressing to work for 20 years before I got much attention. Did I think the award system was fixed? Not that I can remember. I thought life was unfair. Looking back, I think I didn’t write enough and my writing wasn’t a kind that got quick attention. Point is, Correia and Torgerson came into the field, were noticed at once, and decided this notice was not enough, because they didn’t win the Campbell and (in Torgerson’s case) the Hugo. The award system must be crooked.
I realize my description of my career sounds like a whine. Whining is not bad, now and then. Trying to destroy the Hugos is not good.
What I notice is how hard people work in order to succeed, and I also notice that many people work equally hard and write well and don’t pile up money and awards. I think someone should have taken Correia and Torgerson aside and told them writing is a very difficult line of work and maybe they should get MBAs.
Vox Day on Vox Popoli
“A special kind of cowardice” – April 25
Sure, they claim that I am stupid, that I am an idiot, that I am crazy, that I am a badthinker, that my views are beyond the pale and unacceptable to all goodthinking people. But if they are correct, why are they so afraid of me? Why are they so afraid to simply meet me on equal terms and prove that my ideas are indefensible and wrong? Because they can’t. And more importantly, they know they can’t. This sort of thing doesn’t upset me. I just sent an email to David Pakman offering to do a second interview with him, one that would actually address #GamerGate, the game industry, and the Hugo Awards. I’m entirely willing to talk to the people on the Nerdvana Podcast too. If you’d like to see me do either, go ahead and contact Pakman or Nerdvana and let them know. But (and I cannot stress this strongly enough), I don’t care. I don’t have a media career. I’m not concerned about looking like a politician on camera. I’m not concerned about talking points or winning people over, and I neither need nor want any more platforms than the one I’ve got.
Karl-Johan Norén on Brasklapp
“Thoughts on the Hugos and the Puppies”
Fifth, to me the Hugos aren’t like the Oscars, who are primarily about commercial achievements in the field. I want to give the Hugos to the works that stretches and expands the field of science fiction and fantasy the most: picking up new questions, giving new tools to other authors, and so on. Sometimes, that means going over some old field again, if only to look at it with new eyes (like John Scalzi did in Redshirts). In short, the Hugos should be the science fictional vanguard of science fiction. They should be good reads, but they should stretch your mind, too.
Vox Maximus
“If Vox Day is a Bastard, are the Anti-Puppies Bastards Too?” – April 25
But here is the key point: Vox Day can use the exact same reasoning as the Anti-Puppies are using today in order to justify his actions in 2016. After all, he can state that his use of the “No Award” option is being used both 1) as a sign of protest against what Anti-Puppies did to the Puppies in 2015 and also because 2) Vox Day and those that follow him in the SFF community simply do not believe that the Anti-Puppy and SJW nominated works in 2016 are Hugo worthy, thus meaning that those works can be legitimately voted below “No Award” for that year. But how can Vox Day and his followers know, in advance of the 2016 Hugo nominations, that they will indeed be dissatisfied with those nominations? Quite simply, by an inductive inference. It is, after all, entirely in accord with inductive reasoning to come to believe that if most (or even all) of what was nominated in the past by such individuals as the Anti-Puppies and SJWs was not Hugo worthy, then the works nominated by such individuals in 2016 will also be unworthy of a Hugo. So while Vox and his followers may be making a bit of an inductive leap in anticipating the Hugo unworthiness of the 2016 Anti-Puppy / SJW nominated works, it is by no means an unreasonable leap. Hence it is reasonable for him to claim, today, that he will be justified in voting “No Award” in 2016.
Hugos by Gary Locke
James Braid on The Washington Free Beacon
“The Men Who Started the Hugo Awards Controversy” – April 25
Correia and Torgersen’s approach to storytelling finds itself in the same position as modern cultural conservatism—fighting a rearguard action against a swelling elite consensus. Rule changes will prevent them from succeeding in stacking the Hugo ballot again, and the dominant forces of speculative fiction will once again reassert themselves. Future awards will continue the practice of judging the author first and the story second. But Torgersen and Correia have bright careers ahead of them—and both their efforts with the Hugos and their books have given the identity politickers, the social justice warriors, and the literary snobs a black eye.
D Jason Fleming on According To Hoyt
“Broken Hugo Fisking – D Jason Fleming” – April 25
Note that, prior to the Sad Puppies victory this year, according to “everybody” (that is, the popular establishment opinion), Everything Was Awesome except for Larry Correia’s Hugo nomination which, because Larry is a nasty non-leftist, was Too Abhorrent To Discuss. But the problem was Larry, and Vox Day, and the wrong kinds of fans getting involved in the process.
But this year, the Sad Puppies dominated the nominations before the whisper campaigns got certain authors to withdraw their works because of cooties. And while, at first, we still heard that Everything Was Awesome, that excuse just wasn’t flying anymore.
So, now, thanks to Sad Puppies 3, people who have a violent allergic reaction to any nonconformist wrongthink are admitting that, well, okay, something is wrong.
In other words, the Sad Puppies ended up both Speaking Truth To Power and Starting A Conversation.
On Reading SFF
“Contemplating this year’s Hugo Reading” – April 25
This year I will not make myself suffer by reading bad (this is subjective, of course) fiction. I am not sure how I will judge where to set the limit for no-awarding stories. Earlier, I was considering to use my personal impression of the quality of last year’s non-sad-puppy nominees as to what needs to be achieved by a nominated story to make my personal No-Awards cut. This might be too strict, though. I am inexperienced in terms of Hugo voting. It’s very well possible that last year’s non-puppy nominees were exceptionally good nominees. So I am currently considering to make some allowances for my inexperience and put everything that I would at least give a 3 out of 5 rating on places like goodreads or amazon above No Award.
Ron Collins on The Typosphere
“The First Annual Rongo Awards” – April 25
So I have looked at the trench warfare going on within these waters (if I can be allowed to mix some metaphors) from a perch fairly close by, and have finally decided that while I am probably less intelligent than I look, I am not—and I repeat, not—a total sadist. Beyond that, I completely understand my place in this world. I understand I have no real mouthpiece or plank from which to give deep commentary that would have any chance of making a difference. (I am, however, also giving myself a self-serving pat on the back for thinking myself smart enough to assume there’s not a single person in this struggle who seems capable of providing any great commentary that has a chance to actually change anything. My opinion of human nature is that once a person digs a trench, it generally remains dug.) This doesn’t mean I don’t have opinions. Believe me. I’ve got plenty of ‘em. I just don’t see how me pounding the table can help in much of any way.
Still, I want to do something, and I would like that something to be pointed toward the positive.
And after considerable thought on the matter, I’ve decided that the best thing I can do is to spend some time highlighting pieces published in 2014 that I’ve read and enjoyed, and that were clearly “overlooked” by the slate-based approach the Puppy tandem either (depending on your point of view) rightly or wrongly employed.
So that’s what I’ll do.
My intention is, about once a week, to use my little platform here to point out a work I thought award-worthy. I plan to do this until the Hugos are actually announced, though perhaps I’ll go on longer. We shall see. I may touch on stories that are actually on the ballot, but probably will not. I assume folks who care are already exploring those works. My intention is to use my little place in the world of Science Fiction to talk about work I would not have been surprised to see on the Hugo ballot, but were not. They will be stories that should be on ballots somewhere (and maybe even be on ballots for awards not named “the Hugos”). Because I tend to be a weird reader, my selections will likely be all over the spectrum. Regardless, I hope folks will enjoy them.
This is the best way I can think of to address this ongoing strife, and to help these stories and the authors thereof—to talk about the work, to highlight it, and to hold it up for people to see and think about.
Focus on the positive.
Focus on what I think is quality.
Given this, I shall be awarding this collective of stories I highlight the High Honor of “the Ron’s Good Reading Award,” or “the Rongo,” for short. It is an award of high acclaim indeed, and sure to grow to extreme import–certain to change the very essence of the lives of those to whom my fickle finger of fate shall at point.
Perhaps I’ll even go so far as to create a logo for them in my copious spare time. Or not. Why cheapen such a thing with a brand, eh?
Erick Melton on Bifrost’s Trumpet
“A Wheelbarrow of Books – My Offering for a Hugo Nomination Process – April 25
Acknowledging a body of work by awarding a less than deserving piece happens. It’s the political overtones of the current send-up that makes it more unseemly. And sad, too. Because there will ALWAYS BE someone who will feel the “right” winner was snubbed NO MATTER who actually wins. I stopped watching the Oscars in 1994 when Searching for Bobby Fischer, which I believe to be one of the best movies of all time, was only nominated for cinematography that year and didn’t even win that. The film that won Best Picture that year was Schindler’s List. The film that won Best Picture that year was Schindler’s List. A selection that was, I think, motivated both by a desire to make up for previous snubs toward director Steven Spielberg and due its subject matter.
But that’s how it goes with awards. And it’s how it’s gone with the Hugos this year. What will make it worse is if, next year, to “restore balance” or “express the true spirit of the fandom” another slate of nominees is promoted to correct what is seen as this year’s political wrong. If this happens, and happens again and again, we may as well fill a barrel with books and tell all the prospective nominees that the Best Novelist will be the one who can push their wheelbarrow down the track the fastest. It will have as much to do with actually selecting a worthy piece of work as what will develop from any reactionary response.
I like this idea. If we make it a hiking contest to the top of Eaton Canyon, near Pasadena where I live, instead, I could become the Best Writer of Science Fiction without even typing a single word.
Notes From Coode Street
“Episode 231: Ian Mond, James Bradley and the 2015 Hugo Novel Shortlist” – April 26
We almost completely avoid issues surrounding the ballot, and instead focus on discussing the novels and what might make them interesting to read. Our thanks to James and Ian for making time to record the podcast. As always, we hope you enjoy the episode!
If nothing else that is good will come from the mess of the 2015 Hugo Awards,one thing did.I'm now reading Eric Flint http://t.co/Kppt3Hf7Np
— Robot Archie???????????????????? (@RobotArchie) April 25, 2015
Karl-Johan Norén on Brasklapp
“Sad Puppies (filk)” – January 11
The sound of postings on the net good fans, lock down your comment sections.
Beware they seek the deadly set that spawns objections and rejections.
Sad puppies, sad puppies! They seek the perfect screed.
Sad puppies, sad puppies! They’re very sad indeed.
Sad: the books they find deserving. Sad: their look when Hugos settle.
From bias Hugos they are saving; their pot is blacker than their kettle.
Sad puppies, sad puppies, now planning their reruns.
Sad puppies, sad puppies, you poor and little ones.
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Jimchines: “Part of my anger at Torgersen and Correia is because I feel like they deliberately encouraged this Us vs. Them mentality in order to win support and votes. ”
Yeah, and his buds havent been doing that for years. Where was his anger then?…Oh yeah, it was directed at folks like Correia and Torgerson, people with different opinions, people not on his “side”.
JCH: “I’m angry at them …not because they’re conservative, or because of their views on gun control, or because they might have a different religious belief than I do.”
Ive read Hines’ blog enough to know this aint strictly the truth. He might not be “angry” (at least not in public) over those reasons, but he certainly has disdain and disgust for those reasons.
JCH:”But I swear, the next time I see someone arguing not against what someone said or did, but against their own imagined cardboard caricature of “Them,” I swear by Asimov’s Mighty Muttonchops I’m gonna feed that person to a goblin.”
He’d better start with himself. I remember argument of his with Correia a while back where Mr Hines did little more than set up cardboard caricatures and straw men in order to look big knocking them down.
‘It is, after all, entirely in accord with inductive reasoning to come to believe that if most (or even all) of what was nominated in the past by such individuals as the Anti-Puppies and SJWs was not Hugo worthy’
And it is a belief, because one thing the SP/RPs have signally failed to show is a selection of Hugo winners that could be deemed unworthy because of SJW credentials. Where are all these message-fiction winners? This isn’t inductive reasoning, it’s a closed loop fueled by propagadna.
I swear, these Markoff chain generators are getting more and more sophisticated.
I would like to see one of these SJW:s one day. My belief is that they are three headed scaled things, about one feet tall, screeching in high pitched voices in a dialect from somewhere along the coast of Greenland.
Also, they can turn into hamsters and stuff seeds of hatred in their cheeks. That such horrible creatures could control not only the Hugos and the gaming world. They seem to controll all massmedia and I guess the nuclear weapons.
We’re doomed, doomed I say!
Just to make clear my (RobotArchie) tweet is the first sentence of the linked article. I’ve been reading and enjoying Eric Flint for years.
True. I’m the Eric Flint neophyte, but it won’t be my last.
Yeah, and his buds havent been doing that for years. [Citations required]
JCH: “I’m angry at them …not because they’re conservative, or because of their views on gun control, or because they might have a different religious belief than I do.”
Ive read Hines’ blog enough to know this aint strictly the truth. He might not be “angry” (at least not in public) over those reasons, but he certainly has disdain and disgust for those reasons. [Citations required]
JCH:”But I swear, the next time I see someone arguing not against what someone said or did, but against their own imagined cardboard caricature of “Them,” I swear by Asimov’s Mighty Muttonchops I’m gonna feed that person to a goblin.”
He’d better start with himself. I remember argument of his with Correia a while back where Mr Hines did little more than set up cardboard caricatures and straw men in order to look big knocking them down.[Citations required]
Speaking of Eric Flint, as we are, does anyone think his suggestions for regrouping the Hugo awards categories have any chance of happening? Probably not in the near future, but after the Puppies grow up and/or are given to nice homes, is it something that might happen?
The only one I have trouble with is the multiple volume work (such as trilogies) as these things have a tendency to live beyond their intended stopping point.
@Jack Lint
Worldcon committes can add temporary categories, which could be used to experiment.
“Worldcon Committees have the right to add one extra Hugo Award category each year. These extra Hugo Award categories are not permanent. This rule is not intended for regular use, but rather for special circumstances. Generally no additional awards are presented.”
http://www.thehugoawards.org/hugo-categories/
I believe a permanent category would have to go through the two years of business meetings to get ratified.
@Jack Lint
This lists the permanent categories and when they were added.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Award#Categories
Best Fancast and Best Graphic Story were added in 2012 and 2009, so it’s plausible.
As pointed out elsewhere, a category for Year’s Best Space Science – the Japanese Sein awards often give awards to JAXA rockets and space probes for instance – would be a good new category to add.
P.S. Dawn a shit, Philae is best space probe ;^P
“… one thing the SP/RPs have signally failed to show is a selection of Hugo winners that could be deemed unworthy because of SJW credentials.”
That’s by design. If Larry Correia and Brad Torgersen named works that they claim unfairly won Hugos because of social justice warriors, they would show their whole campaign is a Potemkin village.
Jack: I think the idea is that nominations would look something like:
Nominee (for 2008 year, multi-volume novel): Mistborn trilogy (The final empire, The well of ascension, The hero of ages).
Nominee (2012, series): Mistborn universe (Mistborn trilogy, Alloy of Law).
MVN’s would only be eligible when the last book is out. You can have sequels after, still, but they should be judged separately.
The trick for series is that for series where new books are released at least annually, you might end up having the same nominees every year. I could see having a rule that once a series wins, for purposes of the Series award, future nominations could consider only those works that have come out since the previous win’s eligibility period, because the previous works have already been awarded in the same category.
Oh yeah, it was directed at folks like Correia and Torgerson, people with different opinions, people not on his “side”.
Wrong. Nobody cared about Correia and Torgersen, until they started to act out. Their childish persecution complex for not being immediately handed a Hugo when they decided to start writing SF doesn’t mean there actually is a conspiracy to keep them down, just that like so many people with huge entitlement issues they overestimate their own abilities.
Honestly, nobody cares if you want to write conservative mil-sf or take revenge at the Clintons by putting mildly disguised versions of them in your space opera. The only reason anybody cares about a Correia is because he wants to thrash the Hugos because he didn’t win the Campbell award back in 2011.
@Fred Davis
Neat idea. It would be cool to have an award for something like “Best Science Innovation” or for inventions that actualize what people think of science fiction.
Along as there isn’t an award for “Best Shirt Worn by a Rocket Scientist during a Space Mission”. That might get ugly.
@rcade.
The “prime example” the SP/RP cite as SJW corruption of the Hugo process is John Scalzi’s Redshirts. The fact that it also managed to win the Locus award that year (a much broader indication of support) does make holding it up rather dubious, but it is the “bloody shirt” I see over and over again.
More generally, its that none of the winners in the last couple of decades have been by explicitly rightwing authors is evidence in their eyes that the system has been captured by the “SJWs”.
Flint’s point about the market is well taken, but I shudder at the prospect of a Hugo Award for Best Series of Novels in which each of the five nominees is a nine-book series.
If Redshirts is an example of how SJWs have corrupted the Hugos, it’s a pretty mediocre example. Where’s the left-wing political message in Redshirts? I’ve read a lot of left-wing political message-fic, and that one flew by me.
And if it’s one example of a larger problem with corruption in the Hugos, people who complain about Hugo corruption should be able to find plenty of other examples. Instead, the same Hugo-winners get pointed to almost every time: Redshirts, Ancillary Justice, and “The Water That Falls On You From Nowhere”. (Also “If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love”, but that didn’t win.)
The problem with a category for series or multivolume novels is that’s a lot of reading. Last year I read about 14 books worth of stuff to cover the fiction categories, Best Related Work, Best Zine in various incarnations and the Campbell.
I couldn’t really have read much more than that in the time between packet-issue and the close of the voting. As it was, that was leaving out the WoT because, sorry WoT nominators, I had to chose between WoT and *everything* else, and I assumed you had made the nomination in full knowledge that the work was at that kind of disadvantage.
So while I understand the commercial potentials of series and MVNs, I just don’t see that as generally do-able.
And of course the Puppies are welcome to vote No Award above any non-Puppy nominees. If they hate works making it to the Hugo ballot honestly, without an extra push from a slate, it’s the only sensible thing to do.
No Award only works when the majority votes that way, of course. (I bring this up because I have noticed it’s not a given that the Sad Puppies, who have so cleverly discovered bias in the Hugos that the rest of us missed, actually understand how the Hugos work.)
If the Puppies can muster a majority, they can vote No Award in the finals and keep any Hugos from being handed out. Of course, if they have that much of a majority they can nominate honestly–reading what appeals to them without being directed by a slate and nominating their actual favorites even if their political bedfellows don’t all agree–and still get their nominations on the ballot, so I don’t see why No Award would appeal to them at that point.
People often conflate libertarians with right-wing, but several libertarian-leaning authors have won Best Novel in the last two decades.
I believe both Venor Vinge (2009, 2000) and Neal Stephenson (1996) lean towards libertarianism. But they also aren’t vocal about their politics. There are obviously others with conservative or libertarian politics who have won in other categories.
Scalzi has such a huge following that he could get nominated for writing a grocery list. It’s funny looking over his Award Pimpage posts on his blog. He will say he is eligible for a work, or say he isn’t seeking a nomination for something but would not refuse it (Best Fan Writer), or say that he is eligible but he doesn’t think he should be nominated (Human Division). He is almost like a Thomas Becket character saying “Won’t someone rid me of this meddlesome Hugo?”, he has that many fans that react to what he says.
I don’t think Redshirts was great, and I like Scalzi as author (not so much as a person). It didn’t add anything new that Galaxy Quest hadn’t already done. But it is fans that got him nominated, not a conspiracy. Just as with Mira Grant, Wheel of Time, and Doctor Who.
There has been an effort to get more women and PoC on the ballot. As long as the quality is there, that doesn’t bother me. I am interested in the Hugos as a potential reading list, not to vote for my favorite authors or causes.
The anger at Redshirts baffles me. To quote from yesterday’s review of The Android’s Dream:
“As a Canadian of American ancestry, I would like to begin this review by saying: damn, Americans are weird. Take, for example, John Scalzi, who seems to be viewed by paleo- and neo-conservative SF readers as a combination of Karl Marx and the mirror universe Eleanor Roosevelt. To a Canadian, the politics in Scalzi’s books seem hardly distinguishable from those seen in Niven and Pournelle’s CoDominium, Gerrold’s Chtorr books, or even certain Heinlein novels (specifically, Star Beast minus the acknowledgment of Africa).”
Crap, I just saw a typo.
http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/ineluctably-american-sf
Martin Wisse- Hines, Scalzi, etc are only concerned about Corriea and Torgersen’s efforts regarding the Hugos? You might want to read Scalzi and Hines’ comments regarding Larry supporting Ms USA’s statements concerning self-defense. Those comments were despicable and had nothing to do with the Hugos.
Cat- Is a simple majority all that is needed? I thought the Hugos worked on some fairly esoteric formula and that a work (including No Award) did not need a majority of the votes to win. Is there anyone who is familiar with the Hugo voting process who can comment?
Regarding VD’s “cowardice” accusation: If, for example, I see a glib and prolific blogger hold forth at length about how the MMR vaccine causes autism and Jews control the international banking system, I am free to point at that person’s site, reproduce what I consider to be a few representative quotes, and then say “sheesh, what a moron”. Saying that doesn’t place me under any moral obligation to meet the blogger on equal terms and prove (to whom?) that they are in fact morons. The blogger in question (and their devoted fans) may consider me a coward for not joining such a debate, but earning respect from such people is really not one of my goals in life.
Steve Moss:
thehugoawards.org has a through explanation of how the final vote works.
@Seth Gordon
See, that’s why Day is such a proponent of ethics in gaming journa^H^H^H Hugo nominations. How dare someone take his published words on his own site as evidence of his positions on anything? Don’t they know that it’s a joke / test / gambit of his Wile E Coyote Super-Genius mind?
To be more on topic, have Corriea and Torgersen ever addressed how their “open and democratic” slate was created, especially since the nominations received in the initial posting don’t tally at all with the final slate?
As to the claim that VD (and his minions, the puppies) are stupid and boring, here in this post (as well as elsewhere on the blogosphere, frankly) we have ample proof: everywhere they go, they make the same tired claims, in the same tired language, and never do they offer any proof.
“Whisper campaigns.” I’ve heard that one about a thousand times now, and never seen any evidence offered. GRRM provided evidence *against* such campaigns; the puppies ignored it, and kept repeating their claim.
VD calls people cowards because they won’t come debate him. He either ignores or actually doesn’t seem to realize the truth: he is such a boring and stupid man that no one of intelligence wants to engage with him. (And yes, I have spent more time than I really cared to reading both his blogs, so I’m speaking from a position of knowledge here. He makes the same half dozen points, over and over, none of them supported with true evidence, and none of them interesting. Inflammatory does not equal interesting, just FWI.)
His minions claim that Leftists did it first, or Leftist do it too, or Leftists are the real haters, or Leftist fiction is Affirmative Action fiction — again, all without providing any evidence. Even the first time this claim was made, it was a little annoying, since no evidence was provided. After we’ve read it hundreds of times, it’s just stupid and boring.
Come up with something new to say, or stop posting. Repeating propaganda isn’t the same as discourse.
“Saying that doesn’t place me under any moral obligation to meet the blogger on equal terms and prove (to whom?) that they are in fact morons. The blogger in question (and their devoted fans) may consider me a coward for not joining such a debate, but earning respect from such people is really not one of my goals in life.”
That sounds very brave and all, but if the example of John Scalzi is any guide, you will eventually crack and get very upset about it when thousands of people start talking openly about your cowardice, referring to you as “the coward”, and so forth. Especially if it goes on for years.
“See, that’s why Day is such a proponent of ethics in gaming journa^H^H^H Hugo nominations. How dare someone take his published words on his own site as evidence of his positions on anything?”
The problem was not that David Pakman took published words on my own site as evidence of my position on something, but that he took someone else’s words on someone else’s site as evidence of my position on something, and ignored what I very clearly wrote on that same site in order to make a false claim about my position.
He went on and on about what “signs” meant… and I never wrote the word. Not once. And I stated the opposite of what he claimed it meant no less than three times in that same column.
One reason there is so much contempt on our side for the SJW side is that we know that they always lie. And once posted on the Internet, every lie will eventually be exposed in time.
No one cared about Correia an Torgerson…until they started playing by the rules, and winning.
“VD calls people cowards because they won’t come debate him. He either ignores or actually doesn’t seem to realize the truth: he is such a boring and stupid man that no one of intelligence wants to engage with him.”
That’s not true. The usual pattern is somebody attacks something that I’ve said. I respond to them and they promptly run away. Sometimes they even broadcast a public call out, then run away when I respond; George Martin and PZ Myers being two examples of that behavior.
But it’s nice to see a new excuse for their cowardice being provided. The old one used to be that they didn’t want to give me a platform or that they were too important to waste time on such a trivial individual. Of course, that no longer holds because my platform is usually bigger than most of my critics these days. A fair number of my supporters are former supporters of my critics, not because I am boring and stupid, but because they observed the significant differences between me and my critics.
No the problem is you’re good at the Creationist school of debate. Throw out a bunch of pseudo scientific or half truths at a rapid rate so that anybody countering you in a debate runs out of time trying to counter point one.
At that stage you declare yourself the winner.
You’re very good at it throughout if that’s any help?
I think Eric Flint and Jim Hines posted thoughts have been the closest aligned with mine, regarding this Hugo debacle. (I’m also edging into Dark Willow “Bored now” territory with this tiresome and embarrassing mess. But I still can’t look away.)
Pitrea Mitchell- Thank you. I think I have it.
If I’m right about motives, then the Three Body Problem will likely win the novel category. The SP/RP and traditionalist will all vote for it, at least in large part.
Daveon…you do realize that there is no time limit in written debates?
I’d certainly bet on it based on the amount of outraged screaming caused by its non-appearance on the first version of the ballot.
“No the problem is you’re good at the Creationist school of debate. Through out a bunch of pseudo scientific or half truths at a rapid rate so that anybody countering you in a debate runs out of time trying to counter point one.”
I believe you have this backward. What I am actually adept at is patiently wading through the mass of obfuscation that many Internet figures use to baffle and confuse the average reader. I will take as long as required to pin down an interlocutor to an actual position, and this can take a while when someone is being evasive.
“At that stage you declare yourself the winner.”
I don’t ever declare myself the winner, except when the opponent runs away rather than engaging in the first place. I am entirely content to let people make up their own minds. You can read any of the debates linked on my blog; I don’t think I ever declared myself to be the winner of any of them. That’s not for me to decide.
“If I’m right about motives, then the Three Body Problem will likely win the novel category. The SP/RP and traditionalist will all vote for it, at least in large part.”
I certainly plan to vote for it and recommend voting for it. I will be posting a review of it this week on my blog. I was hoping it would be one of the replacements.
VD — “That sounds very brave and all, but if the example of John Scalzi is any guide, you will eventually crack and get very upset about it when thousands of people start talking openly about your cowardice, referring to you as “the coward”, and so forth. Especially if it goes on for years.”
You are such a troll. And you claim you don’t work hard at it, too.
I don’t think you are using troll correctly in a sentence, NelC.
xdpaul: “you do realize that there is no time limit in written debates”
Actually, this kind of written debate is worse than ones where you speak. There’s no threading, it’s easy for points to get lost and if the other ‘side’ keeps bouncing in with an entertaining variety of sock puppets who repeat a point that has already been refuted in the middle of things, you get to start over again. But Beale knows that and uses it to his benefit – add in some supporters on your blogs throwing in random insults and it’s worse than a face-to-face one.
I think GRRM with strong moderating and a decent threading system did a good job actually, but I saw a lot of complaints about it because he didn’t put up with any crap.
Theo Beale: ” I will take as long as required to pin down an interlocutor to an actual position, and this can take a while when someone is being evasive.”
Uh huh. Sure. What I can’t work out at this stage is whether or not you actually believe this, or you’re saying it to try and make you seem reasonable, or you are really just yanking our chains. Given the evidence, I’m going with the later myself…
“You can read any of the debates linked on my blog; I don’t think I ever declared myself to be the winner of any of them.”
Uh huh.
As for pinning down to facts, I read an interview with Mr Beale where he was putting forth some of his sexual and racial ‘scientific’ beliefs and it was chock full of pseudo scientific claptrap that would have taken hours to deconstruct, and, frankly, why bother? Life is really too short.
But again, he does know that. If this really is, as he said here recently, about being slighted on a thread on Making Light in 2005, I think we’ve all the data we need to understand what he’s doing. Seriously, at your age? You ought to know better.
Yeah, Trolls are generally CR5+, VD’s more of a CR3, somewhere between fairies and goblins.
Says the troll.
Xdpaul — You’re right: if we took VD’s description as accurate, the correct word would be “bully”.
Steve Moss: If, after reading the explanation of Instant Runoff Voting on the Hugo Awards web site, you are still confused, you might try GCP Grey’s video on the Alternative Vote. (AV is another name for IRV, and they are often somewhat misleadingly called the “Australian Ballot” because it’s used in Australian elections.
Shorter version: Instant-Runoff Voting simulates a series of runoff elections with the least-popular candidate dropping out and their voters re-casting their votes for one of the remaining candidates. This results in a winner that a majority of the electorate prefers over all other candidates, as opposed to “First Past the Post,” (FPTP) where the winner who has more votes than anyone else (but not necessarily a majority), wins.
For example, in a six-way race (including No Award), you could “win” a FPTP race with as little as 17% of the vote, even though 83% of the voters chose someone else. The Hugo nominating ballot is a FPTP election, with the five candidates with more votes than anyone else making the cut.
The Hugo Awards have an extra twist called the No Award Showdown that gives No Award an extra chance at winning after the votes are initially counted, although it’s never actually happened since the current iteration of the rules were adopted. I’ve written more about how No Award voting works on my LiveJournal.
I have a question for VD, and/or his fans and hangers-on!
Now, as I understand it, SJW, in the most general sense, applies to someone who believes that:
(a) society is currently unjust (that is, society is filled with systemic biases which lead to those who are privileged and biased disenfranchising, oppressing, or otherwise harming weaker individuals or minorities),
(b) this injustice is a bad thing, and
(c) such injustice should be brought to light and
(d) opposed.
Now, you say that SJWs are your enemies. Why? Breaking it down into the list above leads to the following rationales that I came up with, but do feel free to add your own.
(a) Society is already just and no-one has any biases, so there’s nothing to fight for, so those who are fighting for what already exists should be fought because. . . reasons?
(b) Injustice is a good thing, and you support the perpetuation of bias and injustice.
(c) Injustice is a bad thing, but you hate anyone bringing it to your attention, because you just don’t care and hate anyone who does care.
(d) Injustice might well be bad, but it is completely impossible for society to be more just, so everyone should make sure that society is as unjust as possible in their own favor.
(e) A mix of some of the above.
(f) Something else about society and injustice that I’m just not seeing.
And a bonus question specific to VD!
What magical countries have no female independence but do have “lasting marriages, stable families, legitimate children, low levels of debt, strong currencies, affordable housing, homogenous populations, low levels of crime¹, and demographic stability” ? And why haven’t you moved there?
________________________________________________________
[1] Presumably throwing acid in women’s faces does not count as a crime in these wondrous lands.
Kevin Standlee- Thank you. That is very helpful.
“You might want to read Scalzi and Hines’ comments regarding Larry supporting Ms USA’s statements concerning self-defense. Those comments were despicable and had nothing to do with the Hugos.”
The post Steve is referring to is http://www.jimchines.com/2014/06/lc-on-rape-and-self-defense/
Given that it was written almost a year ago, he’s correct that it has nothing to do with the Hugos. I’m honestly not sure what point he thinks he’s making by bringing it up, but folks are of course welcome to read my “despicable” post and comments and decide for themselves.
In other words, debates are pointless because they are so easily won by the person who doesn’t debate well. That is not logical.
If this is all because of one man…why did so many Worldcon members vote for this year’s candidates?
Well it’s evidence as to why Jim Hines isn’t as popular and successful as VD; Note the lack of random holocaust references, apologetics for shooting children in the face, or even a single word to denigrate women or minorities!
I put it to the crowd that Jim Hines clearly knows NOTHING about writing to persuade an audience – I believe, and thus do not have to actually prove, that Plato once said that “the best way to sway your audience and convince them your opinion is correct, is to put some monumentally stupid thing that completely overshadows and distracts from whatever point you wanted to impress upon your audience at the end of any speech or essay you say or write – that way the audience will go away muttering about how stupid you are, while you are forever safe in the secret personal knowledge that it is they that are stupid, as you were merely pretending to be retarded.”
Of course, Jim Hines would not be familiar with the words of The Bard (thats what smrt people call Plato btw).
P.S. Hitler did nothing wrong.