The outrage is not manufactured

Peter Grant hears from a second Tor employee:

It appears that there’s immense anger and bitterness among some senior personnel at Tor.  They reportedly believe the current backlash against that company is basically ‘manufactured outrage’, deliberately stirred up by Vox Day (whose name is allegedly an expletive there now).  Some have even asserted that the thousands of e-mails complaining about Irene Gallo’s statement aren’t genuine, but the product of a bot-net, a manufactured wave of pseudo-indignation that has no foundation in reality.  Apparently Macmillan and others involved aren’t so sure about that, but it’s a defense the SJW’s are using with might and main.  It’s also apparently why almost none of us have had any acknowledgment of our complaints, not even a notification that our e-mails have been received.  (Some correspondents who requested confirmation when their e-mails were opened have received it;  others have not.)

A major cause of the bitterness among the senior SJW’s at Tor is that Macmillan is allegedly taking a much greater role in formulating Tor’s policies and enforcing adherence to them.  The company is said to have a new social media policy that’s been described as ‘Draconian’, and individuals have allegedly been warned that any further violations will be a terminally bad idea, career-wise….

They’re worried about their own futures.  They say that any serious
boycott of Tor will have very damaging effects, very quickly, because
the company’s margins are not good.

What the people at Tor don’t understand is that this is not merely a backlash of momentary outrage at a few recent actions by Tor’s senior SJWs. This is an expression of righteous fury for the way in which thousands of us have been routinely deprecated, insulted, denigrated, and marginalized by a very small group of individuals who believe they have the right and the duty to thought-police the world of science fiction and banish badthinkers from it.

They have been the gatekeepers and they have abused their positions in the most shameless and unprofessional of ways. I may have been the chief target of their leader, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, but only because I happened to be a) the most visible, being a nationally syndicated libertarian op/ed columnist, b) the most irritating, being a published science fiction novelist and professional SFWA colleague, and c) the most stubborn. They despised conservatives and Republicans who don’t publish science fiction novels every bit as much as they despised me.

But none of those people ever had a means of striking back at the people at Tor Books who were raining contempt on them at every given opportunity before. All I have done is provide tens of thousands of people with an opportunity to hit back at the very small number of individuals they know to hate and despise them. The outrage is not manufactured, it is merely directed. I can’t make people angry at Tor Books because they already are.

So, now it is time to demonstrate that we are not bots. Now it is time to let Macmillan know that we truly exist and we do NOT approve of the senior SJWs at Tor Books who have been publicly attacking us for more than a decade.

It is time to prove to Macmillan that the senior SJWs at Tor are lying to them by sending ONE email apiece to the following people on MONDAY morning. (Emphasis added as a result of already seeing emails in my inbox.) Send the emails separately, do not CC them or send out one email to the three email addresses at the same time. The point is to make it clear that you are NOT a bot, you are a human being, and therefore the people at Tor Books are lying to their superiors at Macmillan.

  1. tom.dohertyATtor.com
  2. andrew.weberATmacmillan.com
  3. rhonda.brownATmacmillan.com

The three emails should be short, straightforward, polite, and respectful. It should have I AM A REAL PERSON in the subject, CC voxdayATgmail.com, and address the following points:

  • I am a real person and not a bot.
  • I do not approve of the behavior of the senior people at Tor Books, specifically Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Moshe Feder, and Irene Gallo.
  • I am requesting you to require Irene Gallo to resign from her positions at Tor Books and Tor.com as a consequence of her egregiously unprofessional public attack on science fiction readers and writers.
  • I request a response to confirm that my email has been received and read.

Something to that effect, anyway. There is no need to mention any possibility of a boycott, tell them how many books you buy in a year, or anything else. The people at Macmillan are smart, they are professional, and they know what is at stake. What they do not know is something we are going to have to demonstrate to them: SJWs always lie.

There is no bot-net. No one is spamming them. The wave of indignation is not manufactured and the indignation is not pseudo. Patrick Nielsen Hayden and the others are lying to them. What I would encourage the executives at Macmillan to ask themselves are these two questions:

  1. WHY has Vox Day deliberately taken advantage of this mass hostility towards the senior people at Tor Books? 
  2. WHO has put Macmillan in this situation?

Am I a complete lunatic who, after 19 years of being an unassuming customer of Tor Books, suddenly developed an irrational hatred for Tom Doherty, a man who is by all accounts a very nice and decent guy? Or is absolutely everything I have said completely true and readily verifiable, and I have been the subject of unprovoked, unprofessional, ideologically-driven public attacks by Tor’s senior employees for more than ten years?

Why not talk to the people at Pocket Books, at Simon & Schuster, at Random House, at Regnery, at BenBella Books, at Thomas Nelson, and at WND Books who know me? Ask them if they have ever had any problem whatsoever with me. Ask them if I have ever been less than entirely professional in my relations with them. And then ask yourselves why I am so uniquely and implacably hostile to a single publishing house with which I have never had any professional contact, to which I have never so much as submitted a single short story.

And then I would also encourage the executives at Macmillan to ask themselves why thousands of people are so ready and willing to be stirred up into action against Tor Books and not against DAW, Del Rey, Orbit, Gollancz, Pocket Books, Random House, Golden Gryphon, or any other publishing house in the genre. What is it about Tor Books that causes so many people to regard it as an enemy?

I’ll give them a hint. The answer starts with “P”.

Unequally gifted

It’s a real mystery. What a shame that the teachers in Sarasota and Manatee Counties are so racist:

Only one in 50 black students and one in 15 Hispanic students are identified as gifted, compared with about one in seven white students. Overall, Sarasota County has the fourth-lowest rate of black students identified as gifted in the state, behind the less populated Martin, St. Johns and Wakulla counties.

The picture is similar in Manatee County, where about one in 12 white students are singled out as gifted, compared with one of every 42 black students and one in 32 Hispanic students.

Perhaps they should consider taking action to affirm that black students and Hispanic students are every bit as gifted as white students. Surely assigning more black and Hispanic students to the gifted courses will prove that those students are every bit as capable of excelling in those courses as the white students who test into them.

I mean, there can’t possibly be any other explanation than teacher racism for this otherwise inexplicable racial gap.

Wait, I have a better idea! Why not quiz the gifted white students to determine how many of them are transracial. After all, we know that 10 percent of all people are transracial, so correcting for transrace should go a long way towards addressing this dreadful inequality.

Phil Sandifer explains the PhD lottery

And why it is best avoided. Let it not be said that the man has never written anything sensible:

At the end of my last class of the semester, one of my best students – one who, out of some tragically misguided instinct, actually took a class with me a second time because he enjoyed it – came up to tell me that he’d had a good semester but didn’t think he was going to re-enroll next semester. I asked why, and he explained that he had a job lined up in the family business and just couldn’t justify the loans.

Years of defending academia and the value of a college education reared up inside of me, ready to make an impassioned speech. I wanted to tell him not to. And… I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. Because he was right. I could not in good conscience tell one of my best students that it was worth the loans. And in hindsight, that was the moment I decided I was well and truly done with academia.

I had been going to take one last stab at the job market this fall. With the Flood book done and maybe one or two more articles in process, and maybe even a book deal on an edited version of my dissertation. Just to answer the question, one last time, of whether I could make it in academia.

Which is, as it happens, terribly silly. Academia is not a meritocracy. It’s a lottery, in which the grand prize – a tenure track position – is dangled over the heads of everybody so that we agree to work for the appalling wages that adjunct faculty get…. Meanwhile, the odds on tenure track appointments are astonishingly grim. It’s not unusual for a job to get five hundred applicants. There were, last year, maybe two dozen jobs in my field.

This lack of employability also tends to explain why educated SJWs have so much time to comment so prolifically at File 770 and elsewhere.

I find it very interesting that both Dr. Sandifer and I have reached precisely the same conclusion about higher education, despite our vastly different perspectives. Then again, we probably have very different ideas about the solution, as his likely involves increasing the demand whereas mine would involve eliminating the larger portion of the supply.

In any case, the best way to be done with academia is to avoid starting with it unless it is necessary for your job.

Bokhari on the Tor debacle

Allum Bohkari draws some interesting conclusions from Tom Doherty’s statement last week:

Doherty also affirmed one of the Sad Puppies core principles: that sci-fi and fantasy publishers should neither promote nor exclude any particular political worldview.

    We seek out and publish a diverse and wide ranging group of books. We are in the business of finding great stories and promoting literature and are not about promoting a political agenda

That may sound uncontroversial, but prior to the Sad Puppies, it was a principle that was under genuine threat, with astonishing reports of political intolerance to non-progressive authors at sci-fi conventions. Doherty’s blunt affirmation that Tor is in the business of publishing good authors, not politically homogeneous authors, is therefore important.

For the left-wing authoritarians of sci-fi, who previously seemed able to exclude whoever they want from the community, Doherty’s words came as a serious setback. Tor Books was once perceived to be in the grip of hard-line progressives and identity warriors, but now some angry social justice warriors are even threatening to boycott the company.

Naturally, Gawker was also upset.

But such opinions represent an ever-dwindling minority. Everywhere we look, the authoritarian left is on the retreat. As I predicted in January, a chorus of liberal voices has risen to condemn their behaviour. On social media, in tech and on the campus, ostensibly liberal and left-leaning commentators are busy condemning the extremists of their own tribe.

Meanwhile, campaigns like GamerGate and the Sad Puppies are routing them in the culture wars. As in so many other cultural arenas, the SJWs of sci-fi are long past their heyday. And much of that decline can be attributed to the Sad Puppies themselves.

We are admittedly making some minor, if encouraging, dents in the ongoing SJW onslaught. But while we should be encouraged, we should not be complacent or think that what we have accomplished will not be undone in a heartbeat if we stop paying attention and slip back into pushover mode.

And while it’s great to see the Publisher at the largest SF/F publishing house disavowing the SJW thought-policing in which some of Tor’s editors have engaged for the last decade or more, that doesn’t mean that he is absolved of the need to get his house in order. I have heard, from different sources this time, that Tor Books is very much concerned about the prospect of a boycott, particularly one that is supported by SF/F authors.

Which is interesting, because so far they have been unwilling to do the one thing that will end the matter. Indeed, Tor Books appears to have decided to stand by the broad spectrum insults of its Creative Director and its Associate Publisher. So, let’s see what Macmillan will do. And if they won’t do anything either, well, at least we will know that we gave them every chance to avoid what they apparently wish to avoid.

The key to Tor’s intransigence is their belief that the “thousands of emails” they have received are from “bots”. This is the same narrative #GamerGate has encountered to attempt to minimize its numbers. Therefore, we will need to find a way to demonstrate to Macmillan that those “thousands of emails” represent “thousands of bookbuyers”.

UPDATE: Aaron and JJ at File 770 are convinced that we don’t matter.

I don’t think the Puppies realize that they could boycott Tor and Macmillan forever and neither of the companies would ever notice.

Yeah, I was laughing so hard at the comments on the Tor Gallo post that I was almost in tears. The idea that the Puppies (who for the most part, are not huge Tor book-buyers, anyway) think that they are a large enough group to be of any importance to a large publisher — well, it makes me feel a bit sorry for them when they find out that their perceived reality of grandeur is, in fact, merely a delusion of grandeur.

Perhaps not. Although I note that no one at Tor Books appears to be laughing; they even seem to believe they have suffered huge damage to their reputation. Regardless, there is only one way to find out.

UPDATE 2: Then again, perhaps the companies have already noticed. There may be more going on than meets the public eye. Peter Grant has heard from someone at Tor:

Let’s just say that if the information provided so far is correct, there appears to be a fair amount of sturm und drang in Tor’s upper echelons right now, and things are being shaken up to a considerable degree.

Tor Books and the terror bots

I have no idea how legit this is, but it was posted on Reddit today by someone claiming to be a Tor employee:

Tor
employee here: We stand by her too. Legal reacted to terrorist tactics
of the Puppies (who created bots and have sent thousands of threatening
emails to various people in the company) and, without stopping to speak
to anyone else in Tor who damn well better understood the Puppies and
the broader situation, made that statement from Tom go up. What people
read was a draft that hadn’t been vetted by anyone and Tom was horrified
when it went public. The internal handling of this situation has been
deplorable and the community should know that Tor employees are very,
VERY angry at how a respected coworker was publicly dressed down in this
manor.

Our reputation is heavily damaged and both sides
of the aisle have lost faith in us as a company. As for fallout within
the company? Other than a lot of upset employees, loss of faith in the
corporate culture, and a shiny new Social Media Policy; very little. No
one is going to get fired.

Fascinating. So, let’s examine the claims to determine how credible this is:

  1. The Puppies are using “terroristic tactics”. That’s false.
  2. The Puppies have created bots and sent “thousands of threatening emails”. That sounds like a variant of the old “#GamerGate is just 200 people” narrative that everyone in GG knows to be false. We’re expecting 100 for GGinParis alone. In any event, it means that if you have sent an email to Tor Books or Macmillan, you had better send another one with proof that you are not a bot. And “thousands” of emails? I know people are pissed off, but I find that hard to believe. Dozens, definitely. Hundreds, maybe. But thousands? No. And I very much doubt the emails were threatening anyone either.
  3. Tom Doherty didn’t write the statement from Tom Doherty. That’s a fascinating claim. Doubtful. If he was angry about it, why did he leave it up?
  4. Tor’s reputation is heavily damaged. All right, that’s true enough.
  5. No one is going to get fired. If that’s true, then I will publicly endorse the boycott of Tor that many have been urging. However, given the nature of the previous statements, we should probably get confirmation before taking any such action.

If Tor Books is foolish enough to follow the lead of its editors and double-down, I expect they will soon learn that is a tremendous mistake. If they thought their reputation was “heavily damaged” by Irene Gallo’s comments about Tor’s authors and customers, how much more will it be damaged by officially endorsing them through a refusal to hold her responsible for them? I suppose there is only one way to find out.

That being said, don’t forget, one very important thing: SJW’s always lie. This may not even be from a Tor employee. It could be nothing but fantasy. So take this supposed leak with a grain of salt and don’t overreact to it.

UPDATE: The purported Tor employee expands upon her statement:

[Tom Doherty] is an 80 year old man who “doesn’t get social media” and responded to a carefully crafted attack by Vox Day who manipulated a situation that resulted in some of Tom’s oldest friends and most established authors calling him, personally enraged, by what “they saw on them there internets being said by one of his lady workers.” Tom responded exactly how Vox Day wanted him to because he made the bad decision to not pause for a moment and ask other members of his team for their advice. THAT was his error, rather than inherently being racist, homophobic, or greedy (he is none of those things, I know him personally). 

Except she previously said that Tom Doherty didn’t respond at all, that it was Legal that reacted. This description is incoherent and somewhat self-contradictory. If Doherty wrote the draft letter and he “doesn’t get social media”, how did it end up posted on Tor.com without being vetted by anyone? If Legal reacted, how were they not involved in the vetting? Does Doherty actually endorse Gallo’s opinions of Tor’s authors and customers despite having disavowed those opinions in the draft that he a) personally wrote or b) never saw?

This Tor employee makes Tor Books sound even less professional and more haplessly dysfunctional than I’d imagined. If I were the Macmillan CEO, I’d clean house. It sounds like Tor Books needs it even more than Tor UK did.

Do you ever have that feeling

…that you’re being followed? Irene Gallo started Twitter-stalking me today. I feel unsafe. I mean, I’m sure she has a perfectly good reason for cyberstalking someone she falsely labeled an unrepentant racist, misogynistic, homophobic neo-Nazi, but still, it is a little… unsettling. To say nothing of unprofessional.

Seriously, Mr. Doherty, you need to do something about Ms Gallo sooner rather than later. Yesterday, she was calling your authors “bad-to-reprehensible” and your customers “racist” and “neo-Nazis”. Today, she’s cyberstalking me. Do you really want to wait and find out what she’ll get up to tomorrow?

UPDATE: Irene Gallo appears to have stopped Twitter-stalking me. Thank you for the love and support you have all provided during this difficult time. I feel like I can breathe again.

So brave

I want to see the beautiful Godfrey Elfwick on the cover of Vanity Fair. His courage shames us. And there is NO PLACE in society for the cisracist.

And can you believe this ignorant attack on the NAACP officer and transblack woman, Rachel Dolezal?

angelica ‏@lady_angelica
@voxday Caitlyn never falsely portrayed and lied about her transgender identity though. She didn’t make up black fathers and sons and shit.

I denounce her cisracism! Who is she to question Rachel’s truth? If Rachel felt her father was black, then he was. So ignorant! Race is just a social construct.

The courage of the SJW

I somehow get the impression I’m being Othered. Or something:

Lindy West ‏@thelindywest
Saying “I don’t care about race, I just care about funny” & then casting almost exclusively white ppl means you think white ppl are funnier.

Lindy West ‏@thelindywest
This is very, very simple logic and should not be controversial.

Lindy West ‏@thelindywest
If you think we live in a meritocracy, then, by extension, you think white men are just naturally better at nearly everything.

Vox Day ‏@voxday
@thelindywest Well, they did invent a little thing called “Western Civilization”. And science. And computers too. Among other things.

Vox Day ‏@voxday
@thelindywest Your logic is neither “very, very simple” nor “controversial”. It’s simply wrong.

Lindy West ‏@thelindywest
ew, don’t talk to me @voxday

Rowan Kaiser ‏@RowanKaiser
@thelindywest oh god I’m so sorry this happened to you

papadopoulos ‏@pdlmma
@thelindywest I’m sorry you had this interaction and will contribute to a fund for exfoliating scrubs

What amuses me is that Lindy West once asked what made women easy targets. The two-part answer to her question lies in her own actions. One, women often say really stupid and ignorant things in public. So do men, of course, but second and more importantly, women who do so are often genuinely surprised, and not infrequently, more than a little upset, whenever anyone points out that they just said something really stupid and ignorant in public. That is practically the definition of a soft and easy target.

It’s not that hard to avoid being an easy target. First, say something intelligent that is actually defensible. Second, be prepared to defend what you said.

Of course, you can also run away, cry for sympathy, and retreat to a safe space where no one will ever criticize anything you say. That’s an option too. A safe space where the only enemy that will confront you is orange-and-yellow Oreos. SPOILER ALERT: the Oreos lose.

The first to die

But it is very unlikely that Keith Broomfield will be the last American to die fighting the neo-caliphate of the Islamic State:

Hundreds of people turned up in the Kurdish town of Kobani to bid farewell to Keith Broomfield before his body was handed over to family at the Mursitpinar gate, said Idriss Naasan.

Broomfield, from Massachusetts, died on June 3 in battle in a Syrian village near Kobani, making him likely the first U.S. citizen to die fighting alongside Kurds against the Islamic State group.

He had joined the People’s Protection Units known as the YPG on Feb. 24 under the nom de guerre Gelhat Rumet. The YPG are the main Kurdish guerrilla battling the Islamic State group in Syria.

It wasn’t even two years ago when the usual anklebiters were scoffing at the idea of a revived caliphate. And yet, an American has already died fighting it.