I’ll be interviewed on the Dungeon Crawler podcast in an hour. You can listen live here: http://tobtr.com/7569363
Tag: media
Moderates gonna moderate
You can always trust a right-wing moderate to shoot at a potential ally:
Starting three years ago, Larry Correia, successful science fiction
writer, decided to test his suspicion that the Hugo Awards of the World
Science Fiction Society were increasingly being awarded through the
action of a small group, and increasingly reflect the tastes of that
small group rather than a more general population of science fiction
readers.There were many ideas what the reason could be: a desire by the
active voters to reward more “literary” work. An ideological bias toward
“liberal” writers and themes — which seemed to be more plausible after
attacks on more “conservative” writers like Correia, attacks on the
movie Ender’s Game because the author of the original novel,
Orson Scott Card, is opposed to same-sex marriage, and the expulsion of
Vox Day from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America,
arguably in violation of their own bylaws, for having offensive views on
race and sexual roles.(Just for full disclosure: Scott Card has been a personal friend for
something like 30 years, and along with Ray Bradbury was the first to
suggest maybe I actually could do this writing thing. Sarah Hoyt, who is
also involved in Sad Puppies, is a close friend and as most PJ Media
readers know, my partner in the Book Plug Friday column. Larry Correia
is a Facebook friend who I’ve never met personally. And I think Vox Day
is an obnoxious and unlikeable dolt, as I’ve said in these pages in the past.)Over the years, I’ve observed two things about people. First, people always
do what they find most rewarding; and second, every human institution
optimizes its behavior to maximize rewards — and while money isn’t
everything, when you’re looking for what’s rewarding it’s the way to
bet. Who stands to get a monetary benefit from the direction the Hugo awards have taken?Now, at that point, we have to go back and reference something Vox
Day — who, let me remind you, I think is an obnoxious and unlikable dolt
— published.
If we look back at the last several years, there is a surprising
regularity to be seen: the same people are nominated over and over again
for several of the down-list awards, like Best Editor; those people are
all associated more or less closely with one publisher, Tor Books; and
much of the most vehement objection has been from authors and others
directly connected to Tor Books. The number of votes that decide the
election is very small — tens of votes.
Wait, Charlie, I’m not entirely sure on your position on Vox Day. Could you repeat it?
Translation: I DISAVOW VOX DAY, I DISAVOW AND DENOUNCE VOX DAY, I DISAVOWANDDENOUNCEANDDONOTLIKEVOXDAY! (please, for the love of all that is good and holy, don’t hit me!)
They do not like me, wet or dry
They do not like me, low or high
They do not like me, dry or wet
Because they are so moderate
They do not like me here or there
They do not like me anywhere
They do not like me on the Net
Because they are so moderate
If only I would be more nice
And pour out sugar in place of spice
Then it would all be duly meet
We’d march off to our brave defeat
They do not like me when we win
They do not like me for my sin
They do not like me as a threat
Because they are so moderate
Say this for Charlie, at least he’s not afraid to go show:
William Strunk, Jr. @cdrusnret
you say you referred to @voxday as a dolt in the past, but your link doesn’t appear germane?Vox Day @voxday
That’s just his way of putting up his hands and saying “please don’t hit me!”Charlie Martin @chasrmarti
Vox, let’s just cut to the chase. You wave your hands and scream, I say “fuck off”, we go on with our day.Vox Day @voxday
Maybe if you just denounce me once more, the SJWs will finally love you for who you are, White Buddha.
Compare and contrast
The SJWs in science fiction believe that if they can control the narrative, if they can convince the media to tell the story their way, they are going to retain their control of the science fiction establishment. They are given every opportunity to spin the narrative and make their case; Brad, Larry, and I were contacted by a Wall Street Journal reporter yesterday, which was a welcome change from most of the coverage that we’ve been seeing of late, but so too were John Scalzi and George Martin.
It’s just like one sees on the cable news. If a talking head has on a liberal guest, the liberal appears alone to sell the narrative. If a talking head has on a conservative guest, a liberal guest usually appears to dispute the narrative. And although it is only a guess, I suspect that the way that the story is likely to go will be moderately anti-Puppy, in light of the reporter actually “playing devil’s advocate” in conversation with me.
When I pointed out how the Puppy case is bolstered by comparing the number of Hugo nominations belonging to those in the Making Light clique, (15 for Charles Stross, 15/14 for Patrick Nielsen Hayden, and 9 for John Scalzi compared to 12 for Isaac Asimov, 12 for Robert Heinlein, and 7 for Arthur C. Clarke), the reporter shot back, and I quote, “yeah, but they’re editors!”
Although I pointed out to him that a) Charles Stross and John Scalzi are not, in fact, editors, and b) Isaac Asimov was an editor as well as a writer, I got the feeling that he was not likely to quote me concerning those readily observable and very telling facts. We’ll see, perhaps I’m wrong.
But the anti-Puppy influence over the mainstream media is largely irrelevant. Because, when people look more closely at the situation, here is the sort of thing they are seeing the Anti-Puppies say:
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan: “It’s not the Hugo ballot – that is a problem, but I am solving it by gleefully voting No Award to lots of categories, and I think I will make a point not to read any of it just to annoy you – it’s the strutting and posturing and pronouncing of you guys that I find hilarious. OK, I tell a lie, some of you are just boring and lame, Kratman for example can’t even insult people creatively, but you have moments of pure comedy genius.”
Hampus Eckerman: “Honestly, when you are saying that there are no unwritten rules, the
only thing you’re really saying is that you haven’t got the social
competence to notice them. Even when people write them on your nose.
Mickey Finn: “I’ve been making my way through the short stories, novellas and
novelettes, and so far haven’t even encountered a competently polished
turd.
NelC: “I’m not absolutely convinced that you’re not the type of loony who
thinks he can gain advantage by pretending to be a (different kind of)
loony, but either way, you’re seriously fucked in the head.”
Alexvdl: “I think you have articulated better than anyone else why Beale’s (and
other puppies) reliance on rating systems shows how far outside fandom
they are.”
Whatever reader: “I had a great time voting “No Award” today… I’d rather give the award to a trash can than to the crap they spent years working on.”
By contrast, here is how the non-Puppies in the field see the situation.
Rick Moen: “I think it’s abundantly clear what about the Beale and Torgersen
campaigning and (apparent) acquisition of nomination votes has made
habitual Hugo voters and Worldcon co-goers very annoyed and (in my
estimation) in a mood to terminate what they see as behaviour hostile to
the Worldcon.”
Whereas here is how at least some of those outside science fiction are seeing it:
Greg Ellis: “When all of this blew up I was not even a non-attending supporting
member of WorldCon. I’ve known about the Hugos for years, but never knew
I had, as a fan, a chance to vote for nominees or on the final ballot.
That all changed this year. What also changed was that I came down on
the Sad Puppies side of the debate. For awhile I was trying to look at both sides and judge equitably. I
was trying to be fair and open-minded and non-biased. Then I asked the
wrong question of the wrong people at the wrong time. Even Brianna Wu
chimed in on that one. I was a “white supremacist” by mere association
with Brad Torgerson and Larry Correia because they knew Vox Day and I
was friends with Brad and Larry on FaceBook. Guilt-by-association. I do
not tolerate being accused of something that anyone who knows me
understands that I am not. You want to push me into somebody else’s
camp, make an accusation like that.”
RI: I’ve been a spectator to this conflict for several months now. To be
honest, I didn’t even know who any of the participants were when I first
started following. Now, because of the outcry against you, Mr. Correia,
and Mr. Torgersen I have become a daily reader of your blog and am
rapidly burning through Mr. Corriea’s books.
Bojoti, a Worldcon Supporting member appears to share similar sentiments:
I knew absolutely nothing about the Sad Puppies until this year. I knew of the Hugos but little about them, either. I’d followed George R.R. Martin’s Not a Blog for years, and I remember him encouraging people to vote because the Hugos were their award (except now, they aren’t). But, back then, I had a house full of kids which meant less time for reading and fewer dollars for sure! Now, the kids are gone, and I have more of both of the aforementioned. When I discovered that WorldCon would be held in the Midwest in 2016, I was excited and decided to get a supporting membership for this year and attend the next.
I didn’t realize all the turmoil about Sad Puppies until after the nominations were announced. I came to the situation too late to nominate and unaware that my membership would be an affront to the TrueFans. I just wanted to participate in and give back to a genre that has been integral to my life. Instead, I find that I’m not welcome at the cool kids’ table, which is ironically hilarious, because my science fiction ways were unpopular to the non-science fiction crowd of my youth.
As is my researching way, I took to the Internet to look at all sides. I went all the way back to the inception of Sad Puppies. I read “Making Light.” I Googled, read, and digested from a wide spectrum from news sources (most very biased and inaccurate), authors’ websites, Twitter, and Facebook.
I think what the TrueFans and Sad Puppies don’t realize is that they are being watched by the great unwashed masses, hoi polloi, the little people of science fiction. Some of the behavior and rhetoric is so hateful and venomous that I regret my membership. Authors were saying that the new members didn’t love science fiction; they were claiming that they didn’t even read! Some were even saying stupid things like the Koch brothers bought my membership. TrueFans were disgusted by the thought of new members. They like the WorldCon being small and are actively against new members.
I’m rethinking attending WorldCon 2016. I’ll wait to see what happens at Sasquan before I decide. If people are going to act crazy like a frenetic bag of cut snakes, I want no part of that fandom (or Fandom). I don’t need to spend money to be ostracized, belittled, and hated. I’m sure I can get that for free, elsewhere!
The TrueFans are pushing the new members right into the Sad Puppies’ doghouse. I wasn’t a Sad Puppy, but if the TrueFans don’t want me, they have proven the Sad Puppies’ charge of insular exclusivity. When the TrueFans band together and decide as a bloc NOT to read the works and agree to vote No Award to Sad Puppy nominations, they’ve lost any respect or sympathy I had for them. When people advocate putting the Puppies “down,” I’m horrified. When people write “basically if the “hero” isn’t white and male, the Puppies will get all Sad at you and threaten to rape you to death. Like the good, tolerant humans they are, natch,” I’m sickened. When an author opines the correct way to treat the Sad Puppies is “Well, we make fun of them. We refuse to play with them. We refuse to share our resources with them,” I flash back to the petty games of the middle school mean girls’ cliques.
Baen Books author John Ringo has an idea where things are headed and why:
The SJBs, CHORFs, what have you are facing an uphill climb. Their ‘award winning authors’ are hardly popular in the mainstream (also frequently boring as shit on a panel) and every convention which has tried to stay entirely ‘SJW’ has found it has little or no market.
The CHORFs accuse the SPs of ‘fighting to retain white-male privilege.’ The reality is that the CHORFs are desperate to retain any sort of relevance at all. ‘Their’ conventions are failing. ‘Their’ books don’t sell as well as ‘pulp crap’. ‘Their’ magazines are losing circulation and closing. Lose control of the Hugos and they become irrelevant. And desperate regimes get crazier and crazier the more desperate they become.
They are not completely irrelevant yet. But they will be. And they fear it. Their over-the-top reactions make that very clear indeed.
A misstep on the long march
David Futrelle’s jumping on my failure to properly articulate my statement on what I believe #GamerGate to be is a good example of why the written word is reliably more powerful in the medium- and long-term than the visual medium:
Yesterday, I wrote about Vox Day’s extravagantly evasive — yet highly revealing — interview with David Pakman. But the interview also featured a few striking moments of candor. One of these came when Day — a sometime gave developer as well as the biggest asshole in Sci Fi — offered his answer to the question: “What is Gamergate really about?”
Suggesting that the issue of “corruption in game journalism” was little more than “the spark that set the whole thing off,” Day declared that
what Gamergate is fundamentally about is the right of people to design, develop and play games that they want to design, develop and play without being criticized for it.
Which is an. er, interesting perspective, as there is in fact no “right” to be immune from criticism.
If you write a book, if you make a movie, if you post a comment on the internet — you should be ready for it to be criticized. Because that’s how free speech works. That’s how art works. And that’s how ideas work.
It’s too bad David Pakman didn’t jump on that or I would have corrected myself. But Futrelle is absolutely right for once. I shouldn’t have phrased it that way. It was a mistake. What I should have said, and what I believe, was this:
What GamerGate is fundamentally about is the right of people to design,
develop and play games that they want to design, develop and play.
Period. Although I will add that it would certainly be nice if we could simply design, develop, and play games without being harassed in the process. Now, as is normal for the average SJW, Futrelle hasn’t really thought this through beyond the chance to momentarily try to portray me as being anti-free speech. (DISQUALIFY!) It’s not a cheap shot, given the quote I handed him, but it is a silly one, because I have twelve years of evidence demonstrating that I am fairly extreme on the pro-free speech side, whereas Futrelle is considerably less staunch in that regard.
Of course, they will keep saying “you said it” and “no takebacks”, or as PopeHat rather absurdly tried to insist, “you can retcon all you like”. But that would only convince people if I had no previous statements on free speech, not to mention one of the more lightest moderating policies of any popular blog.
And it’s very easy for us to turn this particular line of attack around on them. In response, I asked Futrelle the following question:
A question for you re your two articles. Do you support the right of gamers to tell women they should not develop games?
The virus spreads
Now #GamerGate is spreading into fitness and media. It’s a pity David Pakman didn’t stick to the topic at hand, as I made a prediction about #GamerGate that is already beginning to come true. The anti-SJW offensive is spreading out from games into books and other industries.
The SJWs took the cultural high ground. But due to their being centralized, they have a very limited ability to respond to the 4GW tactics being utilized by the various #XGates.
A special kind of cowardice
Vox Maximus observes that people are much more interested in talking ABOUT me than TO me:
I recently listened to the Nerdvana Podcast on the 2015 Hugo Awards (a two-part series with Part 2 being located here).
Minute after minute, I listened to these individuals converse about Vox
Day. They mused about his motives. They psycho-analyzed him. They
called his family members “stooges”. And they just talked, and talked,
and talked about Vox in quite a bit of detail (they also
cried–seriously–when they thought about what Vox was “doing” to the Hugo
Awards).But do you know the one thing that they did not do? TALK TO VOX DAY HIMSELF.
That’s right, these individuals used up precious time speculating about
everything from Vox Day’s goals to his potential financial fixing of
the Hugo Awards themselves. And yet, they did not talk to him.
They did not send him an e-mail with questions. They did not try to
contact him on his blog. In fact, they did not even quote anything from
his blog or his writings (or a bad paraphrase or two was included).
I don’t think that this is so much a special kind of lying as it is a special kind of cowardice. The reason so few people are willing to take me on directly can be seen in my interview with David Pakman. Sure, I didn’t cover myself with glory there, but the fact is that even with all the advantages on his side, even when taking me completely by surprise by misleading me about the topics the interview would address and demanding that I explain why I had written words that I never wrote and defend a case I never made – see if you can find where I said anything about “signs” or declared that the Denver shootings were definitely a false flag operation in The Lone Gunmen – I still managed to get him on record confessing himself to be in the habit of having sex without obtaining consent first.
Can you blame them for not wanting to take such risks?
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.
And if people want to attack me for being a criminal badthinker, well, that’s something for which they will have to answer one day. Not to me, but to themselves. For all my terrible thoughts and deeds and words, the one thing I have never been guilty of is telling anyone “you are not permitted to think that and you are a bad person if you do.”
The world is what it is. You can be as upset about calling homosexuality a “birth defect” as you like, but being upset is not going to save the life of a single homosexual fetus if – note the word IF – it turns out that there is a detectable genetic component that reliably predicts homosexuality in the unborn child. The “born that way” concept doesn’t go very far in a society that permits the murder of the unborn.
If you could boil my perspective down to its essence, it would be this: “The world is what it is and there is no point in pretending otherwise.” I may be wrong about some things. I may be wrong about many things. But I do not pretend.
UPDATE: David Pakman emailed me back and expressed his opinion that there was no ambush and no hit piece. He also declined to have me back on next week to discuss GamerGate, the game industry, or the Hugo Awards.
Pakman Show interview
Not the greatest performance by me. I was taken more than a little by surprise, as I thought we were going to be discussing GamerGate and the Hugo Awards, not op/ed columns I wrote 10 or 12 years ago and didn’t even recall immediately.
But that’s how they play the game. I’m not the least bit upset or annoyed about it. I could have shut it down once it became clear that David Pakman had set up a bait-and-switch, but I was interested to see just how far he would take us off subject. I find it amusing that the headlines are focused on my supposedly “controversial statements” when saying that some races are smarter than others is no more debatable than saying that some races are taller than others.
And I am not stating unequivocally that homosexuality is a birth defect for the obvious reason that we don’t know with any degree of certainty that it is an immutable condition determined at birth. But if it is, then what else would you realistically call a condition that significantly reduces the odds that a creature will be able to propagate its genes?
Anyhow, the interview turned out to be an obvious hit piece, as Roosh demonstrates with this screencap of the original video title.
And just to be clear, I was told this would be an interview about #GamerGate and the gaming industry.
On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 4:30 PM
From: VD
Subject: show appearance
Message Body:
You tweeted at me and asked me if I would appear on the show. That’s fine, you can contact me via this email.
Regards,
Vox
Terrific, would love to set something up. We do our interviews via skype
video. If that works in principle it would be great to set something up
for sooner than later. Would you be available this Friday at 11am
eastern time? I’d love to discuss your views on gamergate and just more
broadly how you general views inform your views on gamergate and the
gaming industry. It will be a casual discussion, likely 25 or so
minutes, just between you and I.
best,
David Pakman
Host / The David Pakman Show / www.davidpakman.com
And then there is this:
David Pakman
@dpakman
6h6 hours ago
Today’s #gamergate interview with @voxday is up. He admits to sex without consent, says gay is a birth defect, more http://ow.ly/M51l6
From the interview (17:30)
Vox Day: Have you always obtained absolute formal written consent every time you’ve had sex?
David Pakman: No.
Literary journalism
I think this must represent a new low where the coverage of books is involved. Lana Jordan busts Jane Carnall of the Guardian, who openly admits that she hasn’t read the very books that she “reviewed” and gave one-star ratings on Amazon.
Tom Knighton goes into more detail on this: “When we talk about why we despise CHORFs so much, it’s because of
crap like this. Carnall isn’t trying to just keep Sad Puppies nominees
from getting awards — which has its own brand of pathetic — instead,
she’s actively working to destroy people’s livelihoods. Keeping a Hugo
out of their hands isn’t enough for her. No, she wants to destroy their
careers. Why? *GASP* Because they disagree with her!!! We now see the face of evil, and believe it or not, it’s not Vox Day. Shocking, I know.”
This is what we are dealing with. No compromise, no retreat, no apologies, no mercy. They started this cultural war. We will finish it.
Puppies on NPR
KW listened in and heard NPR doing their usual bang-up job on Sad Puppies. For me, the most intriguing aspect of the media coverage has been the near-complete lack of interest in actually talking to anyone involved in the actual news-making activity. I mean, I am about as cynical a media skeptic as it is possible to be, and yet somehow, these journalistic incompetents haven’t even managed to rise to my very, very low level of expectations.
Weekend NPR show “On the Media” spent 15 minutes on the Hugo awards controversy, starting at about the half-way mark (30 minutes)
Arthur Wu was the expert interviewed. He did some amateur psychoanalysis of the Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies groups.
This was tied to GamerGate, and shortly after mentioning death threats and harrassment, Vox Day was re-mentioned as active in both controversies. One might conclude, if one was a sloppy thinker, that Vox Day has made death threats. They non-judgmentally mentioned your blog is among the most often blocked by workplace filters for hate.
Larry Correia was interviewed, or a clip reused, and John C Wright was brought up and invalidated as a right wing has-been whose prose now includes Randian divergences into poltical polemics.
They must have read PopSci, because they almost quoted their line:
“…Vox Day is … on the record as supporting the Taliban’s attempt to assassinate Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousifazi, finding it “scientifically justifiable.””
“Disco Demolition Night” was also brought up. Apparantly, Disco hate, Sad Puppies, and GamerGate are about fear of castration.
NPR “All Things Considered” teased that they were going to cover Sad/Rapid Puppies as well, but the website does not help out yet.
I don’t really object to their futile attempt to pile on. What this tells us is that the SJWs are uncommonly concerned about losing control of the narrative. And in their point-and-shriek frenzy – and that is all this is – they are bound to overreach themselves and their exaggerations will reach ludicrous proportions as they essentially play a high-tech version of the telephone game.
I won’t be surprised if I’m accused of being a self-admitted member of the Taliban by the time this feeding frenzy reaches its peak. The other thing this tells us is that they are afraid of me. It was remarkable how Damien Walters, who normally likes to work VOX DAY and LARRY CORREIA into everything, didn’t even mention either of us in his initial Hugo column. The media only likes to expose unsophisticated and unsympathetic enemies to the masses, but I am entirely comfortable with the media and not inclined to fall into their patently obvious traps.
That means they are left talking about me, without going to the source, and relying upon dishonest people to give them the straight story. And while they’ll convince the SJW choir, as well as mostly indifferent people who can’t bother to pay attention, at least 9 out of 10 people who discover me as a result are going to immediately notice that I am not even close to what they say I am.
So, I expect this to be not only a net positive, but a significant net positive. I grew up watching Ronald Reagan, after all, and the man not only survived, but thrived on absorbing everything the media could possibly throw at him.
One thing that will be useful, though, is to dig into the identity of each hit piece author. We’ve already tied several of them to Tor Books; the original Guardian hit piece author is published by Tor Books and was in contact with John Scalzi. And we know about both Heer and the PopSci guy as well.
Once we have the complete dossier, we’ll be able to draw a clear picture of how their media operation works and then go about exposing it. Remember, wu wei is all about the art of bending with the wind. Right now it is time to let the wind blow. But that’s all it is, is wind.
A letter to Popular Science
Dear Editor,
I am writing to demand a retraction and apology for the libelous article posted Apr 17th, 2015 at 3:00pm by Mike VanHelder. Mr. VanHelder wrote:
“Big winner Vox Day is an outspoken white supremacist and campaigner
against women’s education and suffrage, who is on the record as
supporting the Taliban’s attempt to assassinate Nobel Peace Prize winner
Malala Yousifazi, finding it “scientifically justifiable.””
- I am not a white supremacist. This is flat-out false. Also, I am a Native American with Mexican heritage.
- I am not a campaigner against women’s education. I am not an activist. I have never campaigned against it.
- I am not a campaigner against suffrage. I am not an activist. I have never campaigned against it.
- I am not against women’s suffrage. I support direct democracy for all, including women.
- I am not on the record supporting the Taliban’s attempt to assassinate Nobel Peace Prize winner
Malala Yousifazi. This is an absolutely outrageous accusation and utterly false.
All of these statements are false, provably and demonstrably false,
and appear to be malicious. Therefore, I am requesting an immediate
retraction of this error-ridden article as
well as a published apology to me. Some of these additional errors include:
- Gamergate is not anti-feminist.
- Neither Sad Puppies nor Rabid Puppies courted any assistance from GamerGate.
- The extent of the collaboration between the THREE groups, (not
two, as in the article) is not difficult to quantify. There are
precisely two GamerGaters who are also Rabid Puppies, myself and Daddy
Warpig. - It is false to claim “No nominated author has ever before
withdrawn their work after making it onto the Hugo ballot.” It is
actually not uncommon for an author to withdraw one of his works after
getting more than one nominated in a category. To give a few examples, Harlan
Ellison withdrew his Hugo nomination in 1968. Jack Gaughan withdrew his
nomination in 1968. Fritz Leiber withdrew his nomination in 1971, as did
Robert Silverberg in 1972. - Therefore, the action of withdrawing a nomination is not “unprecedented”.
I will appreciate your prompt attention to this matter.
NB: If you would like to add your voice to this call for a retraction and apology, this is the editor’s email: letters@popsci.com