More fake reviews

This time from one Carrie Schutrick, who pretends that she’s read John C. Wright’s Book of Feasts & Seasons:

Ghastly
By Carrie Schutrick “Neon Fox”on April 14, 2015
Format: Kindle Edition
I would like to make something clear: this book gets one star only because it’s apparently been copyedited. In this day of self publishing, that’s not a given, so a lack of typos and a writer who seems to have a grasp of the use of the semicolon are things to celebrate.

The content, however, is horrifically bad. To take only one example, there’s the inexplicably Hugo-nominated story “Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus”, in which a woman whose daughter has just died of cancer is granted a visitation from Saint Nicholas, and the girl is resurrected because her mother becomes Catholic enough to deserve a miracle. (And there’s a miracle Christmas tree, even though Saint Nicholas makes it a point to say that he doesn’t smoke a pipe because he lived before people started doing that. Et tu, Queen Victoria?) The perversion of Catholic doctrine around the problem of evil is…well, one hesitates to call it “blasphemy”, but I cannot think of a term that better fits.

I rather wish I had actually purchased the book, because then I could ethically burn it; it’s considered bad form to do such a thing to a book belonging to someone else.

They’re so sneaky, aren’t they, just happening to show up and post the first and only one-star reviews the very day that someone told them to do so. As before, I reported it for abuse and inappropriate content.

The International Lord of Hate fisks GRRM

The results are pretty much as you’d imagine:

MARTIN : Scalzi — look, I know Scalzi is liberal, and I know that the
Puppies seem to hate him, though I can’t for the life of me understand
why — but whatever you think of the writer’s politics, REDSHIRTS is a
light, fun, amusing SF adventure, an affectionate riff off of STAR TREK,
Ghu help us
 

CORREIA: No, I think he’s a fine of working a popularity contest.
Redshirts was a light read, but I’m on record already disagreeing about
amusing or fun and leave it at that. As for not understanding how my
side could possibly dislike this man, here is him being gracious in
victory the night last year’s final Hugo awards were announced: 

John Scalzi @scalzi
I’m not going to lie. I’m going to be THRILLED to snarkread the whiny “I
didn’t want it anyway” nonsense that will squirt forth tomorrow.
John Scalzi @scalzi
WE ARE GOING TO MAKE THE HUGO SLATE A REFERENDUM ON THE FUTURE OF SCIENCE FICTION (loses) THE HUGOS DON’T MATTER ANYWAY
John Scalzi @scalzi
SHUT UP I AM NOT CRYING IT’S THAT LITTLE FLECKS OF GUNPOWDER FELL INTO
MY EYEBALLS SOMEONE GET ME A FLAMING SWORD SO I CAN FLICK THEM OUT
John Scalzi @scalzi
WHO IS CALLING ME PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE I AM ALL AGGRESSIVE DON’T YOU SEE
THIS HUGE GUN I HAVE WITH ME AT ALL TIMES (breaks down, sobbing)
John Scalzi @scalzi
AND NOW I WILL IGNORE THE HUGOS AGAIN UNTIL NEXT YEAR WHEN MY FEELINGS
OF PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE INADEQUACY ANGRILY WELL UP ONCE MORE
John Scalzi @scalzi
I’VE LEARNED MY LESSON AND MY LESSON IS THAT WE DIDN’T HAVE ENOUGH
PATENT RACIST SHITBAGGERY ON OUR SLATE WHAT THAT WAS GOOD WRITING MAN
John Scalzi @scalzi
ITS PROOF THAT ALL THE FEMINISTS NEED TO DO TO WIN AWARDS IS WRITE BETTER STORIES ACCORDING TO THE JUDGEMENT OF THE FANS SHEEESH
John Scalzi @scalzi
I NEVER WANTED THE AWARD THAT’S WHY I’VE WHINED LIKE A KICKED DOG ABOUT IT FOR A COUPLE YEARS RUNNING.

Simply can’t imagine why my side doesn’t care for him… But
anyways, we’ve got plenty more examples of him being classy if you’d
like them.

MARTIN: I try to assist other authors (and artists, and filmmakers, and fan writers) as well, by recommending their works on my Not A Blog. Sometimes it works. More often it does not. If you do the same thing, I doubt anyone will have a problem with it.

CORREIA: They sure minded when I did that last year.

MARTIN: The backlash you are getting now is because you went way beyond that. Yes, all completely legal… but your campaign, your slate tactics, did not just get some authors you overlooked onto the ballot, it pretty much drove everyone else off the ballot. In the three short fiction categories, there are no choices but your choices (well, yours, and Brad Torgersen’s, and Vox Day’s). You say you just wanted a seat at the table. But you kicked over the table, and took ALL the seats.

CORREIA: So we obeyed all the rules, but violated the secret gentleman’s agreement you guys had in place. You know that we didn’t expect to sweep the categories. Some of the categories that were swept weren’t even because of Sad Puppies, but by Vox Day’s separate campaign that I had absolutely zero control over.

MARTIN: Your public platform was all about restoring “quality” to the
Hugos, and yet one of your standard bearers was the worst piece of
writing on the ballot. (In my opinion, of course. All of this is
opinion).

CORREIA: So, I let something you don’t like get onto the ballot, and
that destroys every other work on the ballot, and it also destroys every
other work on the ballot the next year, and I’m assuming it destroys
every work on the ballot forever. Those are some harsh double standards
you’ve got there.

But it doesn’t really matter, because Vox is off doing his
own thing. You tried to shun a man who is incapable of being shunned. He
got kicked out of the market, so went and built his own market. The
more you go after him, the stronger he gets. I don’t think you guys
realize that most of me and Brad’s communication with Vox consists of us
asking him to be nice and not burn it all down out of spite.

That’s almost entirely true. Brad and Larry understood that the Dread Ilk are formidable even as the other side was pretending that my readership is nothing but me and my imaginary wife. Although it isn’t spite that tempts me to burn it all down so much as my sheer love of chaos. Chaos always favors the fast-thinking and tactically nimble. My favorite quote from Larry was this: “I nominated Vox Day because Satan didn’t have any eligible works that period.”

Now, I know some of you are annoyed that Larry and Brad are not responding to the attacks of George Martin and other SJWs by publicly swearing blood brotherhood with me. Don’t be. They live in that community and have to find a way to abide them. We don’t. Larry and Brad are not my pack, the Dread Ilk and the Rabid Puppies are. Science fiction fandom is not my family, #GamerGate is.

They are allies. But they are not responsible for me and they have no control over me. That’s really all they are pointing out to the other side. Of course they don’t agree with me on everything, no one here does either.

One more thing. Larry also understands exactly what I am doing. This is only the beginning. We have laid the foundations for a towering structure that will one day loom over their gates and leave their walled gardens in its shadow. They don’t need to worry about us burning down their little tor. They need to worry that we won’t even see any reason to bother.

Debt and particle acceleration

This is an interesting and intriguingly simple way of explaining the debt-deflation cycle:

The scientists at CERN can create matter from nothing only if they also create its offsetting opposite anti-matter. Similarly banks are only able to create money from thin air provided they create, at the same time, the offsetting opposite amount of anti-money, otherwise known as debt.

In short our modern banks are the particle accelerators of the financial system. They conjure money and anti-money, fortunes and debts, from nothing.

It is informative to extend this analogy a little further. When particles and anti-particles are created from nothing energy is ‘consumed’ and when they later recombine to annihilate one another this energy is then re-released. There is an analogous, though opposite, process of energy capture and release associated with the creation and destruction of money and debt.

When a bank makes a loan it splits zero into a fortune (money) and its equivalent debt. This process releases new spending power into the economy producing a burst of economic energy. Conversely when, at a later date, the money is recombined to annihilate the debt, both money and debt vanish and an equivalent amount of spending power, economic energy, is withdrawn from the economy.

At any given time, if the amount of credit being created roughly balances with the amount being destroyed the spending power within the economy will remain roughly constant and the economy will be stable. On the other hand, if there is an imbalance between credit creation and credit destruction the economy will be unstable. An excess of credit creation – new money and new debt – will amplify economic activity. Conversely an excess of credit destruction – repaying old debts – will attenuate economic activity.

From the remorseless logic of Brahmagupta’s mathematics it follows, any economic boom generated by high levels of debt creation will have the seeds of its own destruction within it. These credit-creation fuelled booms will inevitably lead to their partner, a credit-destruction driven bust – otherwise known as a debt deflation cycle.

This simple way of thinking about how our monetary and banking system works helps explain what has gone wrong with monetary policy over recent years… Our own voting patterns have trained our political leaders, like Pavlov’s dog, to seek a relentless but ultimately unsustainable credit expansion. However, when policy makers seek to engineer an economic boost through credit expansion they are also, due to the mathematics of Brahmagupta, engineering a future economic slump. This helps us understand where the deflationary forces currently taking hold in the Eurozone have come from. These are, in large part, the inevitable consequence of previous monetary policy designed to engineer credit expansion.

The next time you see the term ‘Money Supply Growth’ it may be worth pausing for a moment to reflect on the ideas of an obscure 7th century Indian mathematician and think instead of the term ‘Debt Supply Growth’.

This should help explain why you simply cannot borrow or spend your way out of debt. It’s like trying to dry yourself off by jumping in the pool. It’s a logical contradiction, no matter how convincingly economists like Ben Bernanke and Paul Krugman manage to dance in circles, draw epicycles, and dazzle you into thinking they are speaking anything but utter nonsense.

I think I can explain it even more simply, however. Money is a measure. And no matter how you may redefine the “inch” by making it increasingly smaller on the ruler, you do not make the object measured any longer.

John C. Wright work disqualified

Hugo Awards news from Mike Glyer at File 770:

Sasquan, the 2015 Worldcon, has made changes to the final Hugo ballot to reflect  eligibility rulings by Hugo administrator John Lorentz.

  •     “Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus” by John C. Wright was previously published on a web site in 2013 prior to its inclusion in The Book of Feasts & Seasons in 2014, so it is not eligible for the 2015 Novelette Hugo.
  •     Jon Eno did not publish any qualifying artwork in 2014, so he is not eligible for the 2015 Professional Artist Hugo

Replacing Wright’s novelette on the ballot is “The Day The World Turned Upside Down” by Thomas Olde Heuvelt (Lightspeed Magazine, April 2014). Kirk DouPonce has been elevated to take Eno’s place in the Best Professional Artist category.

I think this is a serious mistake by Sasquan. Just as Dune and Ender’s Game served as precedents for a shorter work reworked and published as a longer one, which was the case with both “One Bright Star to Guide Them” and “Big Boys Don’t Cry”, John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War serves as precedent for a work that appeared on the web prior to being professionally published and subsequently declared eligible in the latter year.

The comparison is particularly damning because John Scalzi specifically declared Old Man’s War to have been self-published in 2002, three years prior to it being published by Tor in 2005 and being nominated as Best Novel in 2006. John C. Wright is a professional author who does not self-publish and he never claimed to have published “Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus”, he merely posted a work in progress on his site and removed it after Castalia House signed a contract with him to publish it. This action by Sasquan not only makes it appear as if there is one rule for SJWs who are Torlings and another for everyone else, but will serve as a chilling precedent to other writers to avoid publicly posting any unpublished and incomplete work they believe might be award-worthy in the future.

While neither I nor Castalia House intend to protest Sasquan’s decision and we recognize their right to ignore the precedents established by previous Worldcons, I do not think the decision was a wise one, especially at a time when tempers are running unusually high. Both Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies exist because some members of the science fiction community were being treated as more equal than others, and the fact that John Scalzi and Tor Books are AGAIN the incongruous beneficiary of this sort of quietly preferential treatment is further evidence of the influential cliques and whispering campaigns that George Martin and other SJWs have disingenuously denied.

That being said, I have duly removed “Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus” from the collection we are preparing for the Hugo Packet. And I trust that the various complaints about John C. Wright receiving six nominations can now stop, given that he now has no more nominations than Seanan McGuire received last year.

Meanwhile, another rabbit is up to the usual game. One Martha L. Thomases of New York, NY,  who “never knowingly slept with a Republican”, has posted a fake review of RIDING THE RED HORSE:

What a piece of tripe. Exactly the kind of …
By Martha L. Thomases “Martha Thomases”on April 13, 2015

What a piece of tripe. Exactly the kind of fiction that appeals to men who are insecure in their masculinity. My only regret is that one can’t rate this book any less than one star.

I’ve reported it for abuse and inappropriate content as a fake review from someone who is not a verified purchase and has not read the book, and I encourage you to do the same. Please be aware, prospective fake reviewers, if you lie about us, we will not hesitate to tell the truth about you.

I am also encouraging Amazon to consider cancelling the accounts of reviewers who post fake reviews. Retroactively. It’s an area they are looking into because their review system is very important to them, so keep that in mind when you are tempted to post a fake review. Note that Ms Thomases appears to be responding to this call by Glenn Hauman to post fake reviews of Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies works and thereby lower their average ratings.

Oh, and to answer the title question: what do you do to rabid puppies? You put them down.

I would point out that recommending a specific number of nominations for
the Hugo ballot is within the rules. Posting fake reviews of books you
have neither purchased nor read is absolutely not. I have repeatedly told people never to post any fake review for any reason. But if the SJWs truly want to play this game, we can certainly arrange to bring a hydrogen bomb to the knife fight.

As for retaliation against PZ’s book, my position is the same as it was
when McRapey’s rabbits were posting fake reviews on Amazon. First, PZ
didn’t take any such action himself or advocate it. Second, he is not
responsible for the actions of his readers. Third, one’s integrity
should not permit one to write a false review of a book, no matter how
much one despises the author. Fourth, I am actively opposed to all fake
reviews, be they pro or con.  I do not want anyone who considers
himself a reader, a fan, a regular, or Dread Ilk to write fake reviews
of anything. Why? Because lying about what you have not read is wrong.  

UPDATE: Glen Hauman is dumber than I thought. He’s actually an author himself, complete with an Amazon page. Now, I do NOT recommend downgrading his books, but I absolute recommend bringing his call to violate the Amazon reviews system to Amazon’s attention. And I call upon Hauman to recant and remove his idiotic call to put down the works written by the various Sad Puppies nominees.

UPDATE 2: Hauman must be a Making Light acolyte, given his penchant for disemvoweling. Here is what the disemvoweled comment on his site says:

*shakes head slowly* You guys really are a special brand of stupid, aren’t you? Do you enjoy poking bears with sticks as well? His audience dwarfs yours and he’s not above using the same tactics as you (as you so helpfully pointed out). So you go ahead and suggest An Approach that can only possibly win if your audience is larger than his. What exactly do you hope to accomplish? BTW, talking about the Hugo Awards without actually talking about the Hugo Awards is dishonest. Why not use an honest title, like “Vox is a horrible person. Here’s how to beat him at his own game.” I only suggest that title because you’ve shown you don’t care about committing libel.

This blog goes to 23

 In which George Martin is slapped back into reality:

 nathancherolis
Apr. 12th, 2015 03:37 pm (UTC)
Re: Vox Day the anarchist
George… do you have any idea how many people read Vox’s blog and love it?

The traffic widget is right there for all to see George.

The man has what is arguably the most read blog in all of science fiction. It may be the most read science fiction website of any type.

People keep underestimating him. People keep thinking that he cannot possibly be this popular and have this many supporters.

Accept it. He is. He does.

grrm
Apr. 12th, 2015 08:06 pm (UTC)
Re: Vox Day the anarchist
Maybe so. If that’s true, it is terrifying.

Rabbits. They are so predictable. You’d think they would understand that is why it is called the Evil LEGION of Evil, not the Evil CENTURY of Evil or Evil COHORT of Evil. And he’s still insulting you, my readers and supporters, even after being warned.

grrm
Apr. 12th, 2015 08:44 pm (UTC)
Re: Who’s sufficient enough conservative to denounce Day?
Yes, generally speaking, “ignore the troll” is a good approach.

But with Vox, as with Hate, it does not seem to have worked. Ignored, they just grow, bigger and bigger, attracting more and more toads to their respective ponds.

 I’m sure everyone here will be shocked to learn that this fearsome chief rabbit is waddling away as fast as he can rather than engage in the honest dialogue for which he was calling.

 douglas_wardell
Apr. 13th, 2015 12:34 am (UTC)
On Day, Denouncements and Debates
While I’ve only been a lurker here, I’ve been reading your blog slightly longer than Vox’s and I will lose a great deal of respect for you if you decline the opportunity to debate him on the topic(s) of your choosing.

As for why I don’t denounce him, the things you’ve stated about him are falsehoods and misrepresentations of his positions. To be fair, he does sometimes bait the hook in such a way that the casual observer may misinterpret his positions to be much more inflammatory than they really are, but that’s a far cry from what he’s actually being accused of here and elsewhere.

Beyond that, any fair examination of speech from him and about him will make clear that the torrent of “hate-speech” is not flowing in the direction you assert.

If you disagree with me, you might as well debate your assertions with Vox point-by-point since he’s made the offer. Either you find out you were wrong and the accusations were unfair, or you prove your points and get at least some of the condemnation you’ve been calling for. Either should be a win for you.

grrm
Apr. 13th, 2015 04:34 am (UTC)
Re: On Day, Denouncements and Debates
What I have asserted is that “torrent of hate speech” is flowing in both directions. That’s why I explicitly linked Vox Day and Requires Hate in the same post.

You know, it is not as if Day’s statements were misreported, or distorted, or hard to find. They are all right up there on the internet. Anyone can find them in a few moments of Googling. They say what they say. Dancing around and saying, “yes, but they did not mean what they seem to mean” is ingenuous at best.

I can already tell you the result of a “debate” between me and Vox Day. Those who lean left will say I won, those who lean right will say he won, and positions will only harden.

The debate should be between VD and someone like Correia or Torgensen, between a Rabid Puppy and a Sad Puppy, to determine who really speaks for this “movement” and what its goals are.

George knows what they mean. The amusing thing is that someone did bring Jemisin’s statements to his attention, and he promptly began trying to argue context. Context! I’m sort of curious as to what context would make statements like “George Martin is racist as fuck” or “George RR Martin is a self-described pedophile, rapist, kitten-abuser, and a few other flavors of sex criminal” acceptable.

It says it on the Internet, it must be true! He also responded to the International Lord of Hate, mostly by discounting his personal experiences, although he does appear to be realistic about the consequences of open conflict in the SF world.

[[CORREIA: If the people attacking us don’t chill out, more of my people
are going to get pissed off, and it might hit a 12 or 13 next year.
:)]]

OH, believe me, I know. And we’ll go right up to 13 with
you. And Vox Day and his band of not-so-merry-men will go right to 23.
And then the Hugos will pretty much be dead, and the world of science
fiction will be that much the poorer.

That does sound like us, doesn’t it? Forget 11. THIS BLOG GOES TO 23!

New reader: where to start?

A new reader wonders where the best place to start reading my fiction is:

I’ve been enjoying your blog, and wanted to know – what would be the best book of yours for a new reader to start with? I’m a big sci-fi fan, but haven’t actually read your fiction yet. If it matters, my tastes are a bit older – Orson Scott Card, William Gibson, Arthur C. Clarke, etc. Terry Brooks and Tolkien when it comes to fantasy. Might be good to have a “new reader” link.

My first instinct is to say QM: AMP for those who lean SF and AMB, followed by ATOB, for those who lean fantasy. But I also think the author is among the least reliable authorities in this regard, so I’ll leave it up to the Ilk to sort it out in the comments. If you all can reach a consensus, I’ll post it here and create a New Reader link in the sidebar.

I’m going to go out on a limb and assume no one thinks that either REBEL MOON or THE RETURN OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION is the optimal starting point.

And on the Sad Puppy front, Mad Genius Dave Freer just asks the question that I did about the Toad of (formerly) Tor, only he asks it about the Guardian as well.

The chances of a ‘hit’ piece, intended to denigrate, on an American populist author with little impact on his British scene, in a publication that tends to Ahrt, are slim. The chance of it happening the very day that the Hugo Nomination shortlist is released, targeting an audience who might possibly go to LonCon, but probably would not have heard of Larry Correia? In other words, to poison minds well before they saw their voter packets…

The chance that this happened purely by accident – about the same as a fully armed nuclear missile turning into a Sperm whale a few seconds before impact.

Let’s get to a second fact. Just the facts. A year later, TNH launched a furious tirade on her blog, ‘Making Light’… attacking the Sad Puppies for sweeping the Hugo Noms. Threatening to bring down retribution for being nominated. Now coming from such a powerful person in Traditional Publishing, and one with… shall we say wide influence (the links are… telling) this is fairly serious bullying. Abuse of power.

But the important thing is WHEN IT HAPPENED.

It happened BEFORE the embargo was lifted.

These facts lead inexorably to a question so simple and so obvious I can’t see how anyone can miss it asking it:

HOW DID DAMIAN WALTER AND TERESA NIELSEN HAYDEN KNOW LARRY AND THE SAD PUPPIES HAD BEEN NOMINATED WHEN IT WAS EMBARGOED?

I think this pair of tweets from 2013 will explain a lot. Notice the connection between David Barnett, John Scalzi, and Damien Walter. And then notice who publishes David Barnett. Still dubious about a quiet circle of conspiracy centered around Tor Books?

When nukes are inevitable…

Relax and enjoy the decline of total war. Jerry Pournelle discusses the inevitability of Iranian nukes with a reader:

Assuming that we were to bomb Iran, how long could we expect to set back their nuclear program?


Let’s
assume, for the moment, a “surgical” strike whose targets are all
nuclear facilities. Comments I’ve read from people who ought to know
something maintain that we’d probably set back the program two or three
years; with the predictable consequence that Iran would immediately
begin the best financed and most clandestine program it could to produce
nuclear weapons *immediately*.

Here, I think, we run into the North
Korea quandary. It is already possible for any tyrant to make the case
that, however appalling you are, if you have nuclear weapons the United
States will leave you alone; whereas if you do not have nuclear weapons
you live on sufferance. That’s awkward. While I certainly wouldn’t want
to encourage nuclear proliferation, I’m not sure it’s helpful to
persuade tyrants that they *really, really need* nuclear weapons.

Now,
of course, the problem could perhaps be “solved” by strikes aimed not
at nuclear plants but at destroying Iran as a civilization. At which
point we really would have become a Satan. Or, at least, an apocalyptic
Babylon.

So my question to Mr. Stephens would be: short of becoming
monsters, there is probably no permanent way to prevent Iran from
getting nuclear weapons. In consequence, do we really want to pursue a
strategy whose likely result would be to urge them to get the bomb
*really quickly?* Or are delaying tactics more likely to produce useful
results?

Buying time is always a useful purchase. And perhaps the horse will learn to sing.
 
Yours,
Allan E. Johnson

Allan Johnson puts the case well and compellingly. Our choices are
few, and our technical capabilities are uncertain. Strikes at Iranian
nuclear capabilities will be bloody given their locations. Commando
style raids would make the destruction more thorough but would be far
more costly. The Iranians have been clever in their designs and
location. Uncertainties about the success of a surgical denuclearization
attack are quite high for the US or any conceivable coalition working
with us.

Of course that is doubly, triply, true for Israel; to assure the
attack’s success might require nuclear weapons, and I am quite certain
that at least some IDF generals have said this to the War Cabinet. First
use of nuclear weapons has so many devastating diplomatic and domestic
political consequences that I doubt Mr. Netanyahu would seriously
consider it.

Buying time may be all that is possible.

And buying time is pointless except for the small minority who benefit from the delay. In some cases, such as the Federal Reserve’s decision to delay the inevitable bankruptcies of the indebted, buying time has made the situation observably worse for most.

The real question is if Israel genuinely feels itself threatened by a nuclear Iran or not. Considering that Martin van Creveld has been very clear about the fact that it does not, we can safely discount the likelihood that Israel will do anything, much less nuke Iran. I don’t doubt that Israel would do so if they perceived a legitimate  existential threat, but the fact that they have not done so already suffices to indicate that they do not.

After reading several of van Creveld’s books from THE TRANSFORMATION OF WAR to A HISTORY OF STRATEGY and TECHNOLOGY AND WAR, it has become very clear that the primary military function of nuclear weapons is to take 20th century total war off the table. This does not mean that war will not take place, but rather, that it will take place on a scale more similar to those wars prior to the mass mobilizations of entire populations and the targeting of enemy civilians.

Remember, war has historically almost NEVER been primarily about killing the enemy, but rather destroying his will to fight by demoralizing him. And that should be of considerably more concern to an utterly, and literally, de-moralized West than one more nation possessing weapons it has no intention of using unless attacked.

Mailvox: refuting the rhetorical

JD has a suggestion which makes superficial sense, although I tend to doubt it will accomplish anything given the inability of rhetorical minds to change based on information:

I got an idea reading your latest post about George R. R. Martin baiting the hook. Martin just reiterates the same litany of labels/misrepresentations that people love to affix to you but I seriously doubt he has spent any time on your blog or twitter feed looking for the relevant posts and quotes to read for himself- so maybe it would be useful to put them all together in one convenient place for all to read. I am suggesting you put together a FAQ relating to Sad/Rabid Puppies and yourself in general that you put front and center on your blog. I think it could serve a variety of purposes. (It would be a fun little museum of SJW’s lies and misrepresentations about you and would be more fun to browse than a freak show at the circus.) 

I have spent a fair amount of time lately around the web and social media reading what your detractors say about you and Sad/Rabid puppies. Whether it is blog, Reddit, Twitter, etc., they trot out the same accusations: “he said black people are savages, he thinks it’s okay to throw acid in women’s faces, he got kicked out of the SFWA because he used the SFWA communication channels to spread racism, he is a white-supremacist, he is a Christian dominionist, he has said that he hates women, he is trying to destroy the Hugos, he gamed the Hugos…”

I know you have addressed these kinds of things as you have encountered them, but I think it would be helpful to put them all in one place, especially now that the mainstream media is taking notice of the Hugo situation. Quote the SJW’s accusation, link to the relevant blog entries if applicable, define yourself in your own words, and most importantly- make people accountable for twisting your words and misrepresenting you. I’m sure the Ilk wouldn’t mind helping you collect and catalogue the slanders against you.

As I said, I’m skeptical, but it can’t hurt. To address the specific accusations:

  1. I did not say black people are savages. I said one black individual, N.K. Jemisin, was a half-savage. I was wrong. She is, we are reliably informed by Ms Jemisin herself, a full savage. In addition to falsely claiming that I am “a self-described
    misogynist, racist, anti-Semite, and a few other flavors of asshole”, the charming Ms Jemisin has also claimed “a) that Heinlein was racist as *fuck*,
    and b) most of science fiction fandom was too.” It’s mildly amusing to see science fiction fandom fall all over itself to call me racist in defense of the woman who has openly, and repeatedly, declared that they are racists.
  2. I do not think it is okay to throw acid in women’s faces for any reason. I do think the Taliban are rational and that their policy of mutilating and murdering those who threaten their way of life reflects their objectives and their ruthlessness rather than an inability to think rationally. The fact that they have successively defeated the Red Army and NATO in Afghanistan tends to support my case.
  3. I was not kicked out of SFWA for any reason. The SFWA Board voted to expel me, but the membership never followed suit as required by the bylaws at the time. And no reason was given by the SFWA Board for its vote. The real reason was that Patrick Nielsen Hayden and John Scalzi refused to pay their dues to SFWA and presented the board with choice between me and a Senior Editor at Tor Books as well as its three-time former president.
  4. I am not a white supremacist. I am a Native American with considerable Mexican heritage. Mexican Revolutionary heritage to be precise. I am not a supremacist of any kind, but I would be better described as an East Asian supremacist. I tend to prefer Western European culture, specifically Italian culture, but I am an East Asian Studies major, I lived and studied in Japan, and I still speak some Japanese.
  5. I could not unreasonably be described as a small-d Christian dominionist, but I am more accurately described as a Western Civilizationist. I believe that any civilized Western society will be a Christian one or it will cease to be civilized… if it manages to survive at all. The explosion of Christianity throughout Asia versus Western postchristianity is one reason I think the future favors Asian civilization in the long term. I think Europe is in the process of going back to being the historical sideshow it was prior to the 1500s.
  6. I am not trying to destroy the Hugo Awards. I am indifferent to their fate.
  7. I did not game the 2014 Hugo Awards. After being falsely accused of doing so by numerous parties, I decided to demonstrate the absurdity of the accusation by gaming the 2015 Awards. I trust my innocence with regards to the 2014 Awards is now clear and I look forward to receiving apologies from those who falsely accused me.

Anything else? I tend to doubt knowing the relevant facts will affect many opinions, for the obvious reason that if you are inclined to write someone off completely because you heard they once called someone a “half-savage”, you are providing a very strong indication that your mind is limited to the rhetorical level.

Indeed, the fact that the same ungrammatical excerpt chopped out of the middle of a sentence keeps being trotted out again and again should alert the dialectical mind to the probability that there simply isn’t very much, if any, there there. The complete sentence, which for obvious reasons is almost never quoted, much less quoted in context, is this:


“Being an educated, but ignorant half-savage, with little more
understanding of what it took to build a new literature by “a bunch of
beardy old middle-class middle-American guys” than an illiterate Igbotu
tribesman has of how to build a jet engine, Jemisin clearly does not
understand that her dishonest call for “reconciliation” and even more
diversity within SF/F is tantamount to a call for its decline into
irrelevance.”

But it is entirely obvious that we’re not dealing with dialectical minds capable of logic, we’re dealing with rhetorical minds that are swayed solely by emotion. Such minds can be changed, but not by facts and reason. The more successful we are, and the more staunchly we stand, the more of them that will come over to our side for a whole host of “reasons” that will neither make sense to us nor withstand logical scrutiny.

Especially when this is what passes for the honest dialogue and debate from the other side when they come to comment here:

What does a right-wing fundamentalist southern Baptist do that’s “civilized”? – fuck his sister? Sodomize pigs and goats? Masturbate with his own gun? Beat his wife with a copy of the Bible? Dress in white sheets while spewing the kind of racist garbage that Hitler would be proud of? Too bad your mum didn’t abort you. At least you’re an old fuck who will die before me, so I can laugh over how few people come to your funeral.

Show or skedaddle?

George Martin responds to my offer of honest dialogue and a debate:

So… I post here about how pleased I was to enjoy one good night, away from all this Puppygate shit, and you feel the need to drag Vox Day into it?

What would be the subject of this “debate?” Whether women should have the vote? Whether black people are savages or only half-savages?

Perhaps after that debate, I could debate Requires Hate on whether writers should have acid thrown in their faces, or just be raped by dogs.

We can debate whatever issues are so important that you claimed you wanted to be able to debate when you said: “Can’t we just debate the issues?”

I am giving you that opportunity. The opportunity you said you wanted.

We can certainly debate whether women should have the vote if you wish. We can debate whether black people are savages or half-savages, if that is a subject that is of particular interest to you.

I think it would be more interesting to debate your demand for no tolerance of hatespeech and the proper limits of free speech. There is also the strange contention that Requires Hate and I “are twins. Mirror images of one another.” You made the assertion. You have neither recanted nor apologized for it. Therefore, it seems a reasonable subject of honest dialogue and debate, given that I very much disagree with the assertion. Alternatively, we could debate the long term ramifications of the No Award tactic, the quality of the 2015 Best Novel shortlist compared to past Hugo shortlists, or any other aspect of Puppygate that you might find interesting.

The point, Mr. Martin, is that you said debate and honest dialogue are important. You are one of the biggest and best-known figures who claims to be on the side of those you call “the good guys” in SF fandom. I am the Supreme Dark Lord of the Evil Legion of Evil and a rising figure in science fiction. If you cannot bother to engage in honest dialogue with me, then why should any of the less famous, less notorious, less influential individuals on either side of the ideological divide in science fiction bother to do so either?

I’m entirely comfortable with the idea of an open, all-out ideological war. War-War is intrinsically more entertaining than Talk-Talk, after all. Are you?

Now, it’s possible that you didn’t mean what you wrote. It’s possible that you are just another posturing SJW, who puffs and preens and bluffs until he is called out, then promptly runs away. Many of my readers, who are also your readers, believe that. But I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt that you transparently were not willing to give me.

If you want to run away and claim that you are too busy doing Very Important Things to engage in what you said was required, that’s absolutely fine with me. I can certainly use that to my advantage. I have with others who ran away in the past. But because I have enjoyed some of your work since “Sandkings”, I will violate Napoleon’s dictum and point out that you will likely end up hearing my name a lot more often if you run away than if you do not.

Mailvox: an offer to debate George Martin

n4apound quotes George Martin and proposes what Mr. Martin has said he is seeking.

“[Vox Day is] spewing forth the venom of hatred and violence, poisoning any attempt at honest dialogue.”

Honest question: Can you point to a real example of this?  (Poisoning honest dialogue, as opposed to an internet pissing match.) Since you seem to be referencing direct knowledge, have you personally ever attempted an honest dialogue with Vox Day? As a reader of VD, I thoroughly doubt your claim.  I have read VD dismantle opponents’ arguments logically, sometimes using rhetorical flair as well, but I have never seen him use hatred and violence to poison an attempt at honest dialogue. In fact, he seems to *relish* honest dialogue.

“When we disagree, is it really necessary to spit and snap at each other, to throw around insults and obscenities, to make death threads, rape threats? Can’t we just debate the issues?”

Good questions.  I say that (since I am a fan of VD’s books) as a hate-enabling toad or something like that.

“Can’t we just debate the issues?”

Since you are calling for a “conservative in the house with the courage and integrity… honest and brave enough” to denounce VD, perhaps you would lead the way in displaying those attributes and make your specific case against him (or his part in the Hugo noms) in a new post and invite VD to respond.

As a voice of liberal moderation and reason, if you made a good-faith effort to reach out and VD responds with threats and hatred as you portray, then I guarantee that your effort to marginalize him will be greatly aided.  I imagine at that point you would even get conservatives to denounce him as you desire.  You would absolutely OWN the moral high ground.  Or if you were able to reason him away from his “extreme” positions, even slightly, you would win that way as well.

(Of course, it may be too late for an honest dialogue now that you have attacked not just him but his benighted fans.  He has a policy regarding that.)

The only way you lose in such an endeavor is if the hyperbole(?) in your post above is shown to be wrong.  And is that really a loss?

I am quite willing to debate Mr. Martin blog-to-blog on any subject he chooses. In fact, I will go so far as to guarantee that if I resort to threats and hatred in the course of that debate, I will ask both Brad Torgersen and Larry Correia to denounce me in the strongest possible terms.

We certainly can debate the issues. I have debated economics, evolution, the existence of gods, and even ancient philosophical skepticism without any need to resort to threats, hatred, or even rancor. But it is difficult to debate when SJWs constantly run away from debate whenever it is proposed to them.

I once offered a debate on racism to Jason Sanford. He ran away from it, declaring that some things could not be debated. I once responded to PZ Myers’s call to debate the existence of God. He ran away from it, claiming that I was a crackpot. I subsequently offered to debate him in his field of expertise, but he ran away from that too. A third party proposed a debate between me and John Scalzi. I accepted, whereas John Scalzi ran away from it.

You have asked if we cannot simply debate the issues. I say we can. I am entirely willing to debate the issues with you without spitting and snapping, without throwing around insults and obscenities, and without threatening to rape or kill you, if you are willing to do the same. My readership is considerably smaller than yours, but it is not insubstantial; my blogs now see 1.6 million pageviews per month. In the interest of amity within the science fiction community, I am even willing to overlook the fact that you have repeated various falsehoods about me, concocted some fascinating new ones, and insulted my loyal readers by calling them “toads”.

Nevertheless, I am willing to debate the issues, Mr. Martin. I am willing to engage in honest dialogue. Are you?