Tag: SJW

Mr. Feder fans the flames

Now Tor Books editor Moshe Feder calls Tor’s unhappy customers “idiots”:

As you may have heard, certain scoundrels have declared a boycott of Tor, starting today, to protest the efforts of some Tor employees to defend the Hugo Awards from attack. In response, some of our friends have declared today “Buy A Tor Book Day.”

I wouldn’t have the temerity to ask you to buy a book just because some idiots have declared war on us. But if there _is_ a Tor Book you’ve been meaning to get anyway, buying it today would be a a gesture I’d appreciate.

[As always here on Facebook, I’m speaking for myself and not the company.]

It’s got to be nice for Tor Books to know they’ve got so many imaginary friends defending them. As we have been repeatedly and reliably informed:

Since the Puppy boycott of Tor Books is on I just bought three ebooks from Tor and preordered two more.

And if Mr. Feder is only speaking for himself, who is this “us” to whom he refers? Whose friends are they? But it is nice of him to dial down the rhetoric from “racist neo-nazis” to mere “idiots” and “scoundrels”.

Meanwhile, Peter Grant points out that Feder is lying. Personally, I find Feder’s explanation of the boycott to be fascinating, as apparently Irene Gallo was merely defending the Hugo Awards from attack when she described Tor-published books as “bad-to-reprehensible”, attacked Tor’s customers as “racist” and “misogynistic” and “neo-nazi”. That’s an interesting priority. I was not hitherto aware that “defending the Hugo Awards” was a professional responsibility for employees at Tor Books.

It’s worth pointing out that we are not at war with Tor Books. We are merely asking Macmillan to save Tor Books from the observably self-destructive and unprofessional leadership of three of its senior employees, who have abused Tor’s authors and attacked Tor’s customers.

The Internet never forgets.

The war on free expression

The principled defenses have failed. The attempts to ignore it have failed. The attempts to placate have, predictably, failed. The only way to shut down the “army of self-appointed militants who see themselves as the guardians of correct thinking” is hit back twice as hard and hold the SJWs completely accountable to their own rules.

When Professor Tim Hunt, the Nobel Prize-winning biochemist, recently addressed a major conference in Seoul about women in science, he said he had three problems with ‘girls in laboratories’, namely that: ‘You fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticise them, they cry.’

As a media storm erupted, Hunt insisted that his remarks were made in ‘a totally jocular, ironic way’.

But none of that matters to today’s self-righteous crusaders against offensive opinions, for whom language is never a laughing matter. Professor Hunt was immediately surrounded online by an outraged Twitter mob demanding his head on a pike.

These boycott-and-ban zealots are not content with exercising their right to criticise somebody who makes an offensive joke. Quivering with self-righteous indignation, they want to silence those who fail to conform to their group-think.

In this case, their bullying worked. The scientific authorities immediately caved in. Not only was Hunt forced to resign from his post at University College London, but he was also dismissed from the science committee of the European Research Council.

So biochemistry loses a brilliant pioneer, while we lose more ground to the forces of oppressive censorship.

For the saga of Tim Hunt’s downfall is just the latest example of how a culture of verbal prohibition is taking over society, led by an army of self-appointed militants who see themselves as the guardians of correct thinking.

If you don’t want to see more Nobel Laureates like Tim Hunt and James Watson hounded from science, more innovators like Brandon Eich hounded from tech, then you should endorse the Tor Books boycott and force the SJWs to realize that they will be held twice as accountable for their every joke, every tweet, every Facebook comment, and every personal statement as they hold everyone else.

The First Law in action

The SJWs trying to save Irene Gallo and Patrick Nielsen Hayden from the Macmillan axe must be getting desperate. In addition to launching a “Buy Tor books” campaign in response to the boycott they mocked, they’re doing what SJWs always do.

Which is what? All together now…. In this case, the SJWs in science fiction are pretending to buy books that they’re not actually buying. ED noticed a recurring pattern on Twitter today:

Kerian Larsen ‏@KerianLarsen  1h1 hour ago
Since the Puppy boycott of Tor Books is on I just bought three ebooks from Tor and preordered two more.

Phyllis Chandler ‏@phyllis_chandle  1h1 hour ago
Since the Puppy boycott of Tor Books is on I just bought three ebooks from Tor and preordered two more.

Maisy ‏@Maisy_Chandler  2h2 hours ago
Since the Puppy boycott of Tor Books is on I just bought three ebooks from Tor and preordered two more.

Kalia ‏@kalia_weaver  2h2 hours ago
Since the Puppy boycott of Tor Books is on I just bought three ebooks from Tor and preordered two more.

Desiree ‏@Desiree_Waller  2h2 hours ago
Since the Puppy boycott of Tor Books is on I just bought three ebooks from Tor and preordered two more.

Dee Foreman ‏@Dee_Foreman  2h2 hours ago
Since the Puppy boycott of Tor Books is on I just bought three ebooks from Tor and preordered two more.

Cherie ‏@Cherie_Blanchar  2h2 hours ago
Since the Puppy boycott of Tor Books is on I just bought three ebooks from Tor and preordered two more

Fernanda ‏@fernanda_wise  2h2 hours ago
Since the Puppy boycott of Tor Books is on I just bought three ebooks from Tor and preordered two more

Greta ‏@greta_welch  2h2 hours ago
Since the Puppy boycott of Tor Books is on I just bought three ebooks from Tor and preordered two more

Jayla Bauer ‏@JaylaBauer  3h3 hours ago
Since the Puppy boycott of Tor Books is on I just bought three ebooks from Tor and preordered two more.

Bria ‏@brialangley  3h3 hours ago
Since the Puppy boycott of Tor Books is on I just bought three ebooks from Tor and preordered two more

Kurt Busiek ‏@KurtBusiek  3h3 hours ago
Since the Puppy boycott of Tor Books is on, I just bought three e-books from Tor and pre-ordered two more.

On the plus side, I think we now have an answer to how John Scalzi has so many Twitter followers when no one is reading his blog anymore.

Tor boycott announced

Peter Grant explains why he is no longer going to buy any Tor products:

Regrettably, due to the apparent lack of action by (and the deafening silence from) Tor and Macmillan, the time has come to do as I promised.  I therefore ask all those who believe, as I do, that the recent statement by Irene Gallo, and the pattern of behavior and statements from others at Tor whom I’ve previously named, are completely unacceptable, to join me in refusing to buy any of Tor’s products from now on.

I support and endorse what Larry Correia said about this yesterday.

    … this is between Tor and its readers who feel insulted, not the Sad Puppies campaign or the people who ran it … To the Sad Puppies supporters, do what you think is right. All I’m asking is that whatever you do, try to be as civil as possible in your disagreements. Stick with the facts.

I am not a member of, and I do not speak for, either the ‘Sad Puppies’ or ‘Rabid Puppies’ campaigns (although I support the former).  I don’t represent cute puppies, playful puppies, cuddly puppies or hush puppies – only myself.  If you share, in whole or in part, my values and outlook on life, I invite you to join me in this boycott.  Don’t do so just because I, or anyone else, is asking you to do so.  Act on the basis of your own informed conscience and reasoned judgment.

As you can see, I have been a Tor Books customer since 1986, when I bought a mass market paperback copy of The Edge of Tomorrow by Isaac Asimov. And because I have considerably more experience of Tor Books and the consistently abusive and unprofessional behavior of its senior employees than Mr. Grant, I will go a little further than he has. Until Irene Gallo and Patrick Nielsen Hayden are no longer employed by Tor Books or Tor.com, I will not:

  1. Purchase any books published by Tor Books
  2. Read any books published by Tor Books

Given (2), this means that if Ms. Gallo and Mr. Nielsen Hayden are still employed by Tor Books in 2016, I will not nominate any books published by Tor Books for any awards.

I encourage those who deem Ms. Gallo’s behavior to be unprofessional and unacceptable to follow Mr. Grant’s lead and join the Tor Books boycott. I am the leader of the Rabid Puppies, I do speak for them, and I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that they will follow my lead in this regard with all the vim and vigor for which they are rightly known.

I am not concerned about whether the boycott is “successful” or not. The simple fact is that if Macmillan is at all interested in the long-term success of Tor Books, it will jettison both Ms Gallo and Mr. Nielsen Hayden on the basis of their disloyalty, their unprofessional behavior, and their repeated violations of the Macmillan Code of Conduct, regardless of what any outside parties may happen to believe. I simply won’t have anything to do with Tor Books as long as those two individuals are employed there.

There will be those who claim that the boycott will make no difference at all. They may well be correct. Regardless, in response I can do no better than to quote the wise words of the VFM. “We don’t care.”

So very unconcerned

The First Law of the Social Justice Warrior: SJWs always lie.

The Second Law of the Social Justice Warrior: SJWs always double down.

As you’d expect, both of these things are seriously in effect in the Gallo affair. The latest SJW incoherence is this:

  1. Mocking the prospective boycott of Tor Books as being numerically trivial and ineffective.
  2. Declaring that they are buying books published by Tor Books today in order to preemptively counteract the effects of that trivial and ineffective boycott.

Based on their actions, the SJWs are just a little more concerned about it than they affect. Quelle surprise. The fact is that I don’t know how effective a boycott of Tor Books will be. I don’t know if it will inspire Macmillan to actually pay attention to the unprofessional behavior of the senior employees at their subsidiary. The point is that I am simply not going to support an organization that employs an individual who so openly hates me, my readers, and various authors that I support, and who publicly lies about us.

The organization is certainly free to ignore me and continue to not sell books to me. The organization is absolutely free to employ anyone they like, including ludicrously unprofessional people who can’t even bother to disguise their hatred for all of their customers to the right of Bernie Sanders. I can’t dictate anyone’s actions but my own.

Even so, it appears there are either an awful lot of people who are interested in my actions today or just a few SJWs who are concerned enough to launch a DDOS attack to try to disrupt the anticipated announcement this afternoon. This is a screen shot of the current Sitemeter traffic at VP as of 10:15 AM this morning. I suppose it could be a Sitemeter bug, but I find the timing rather suspicious, especially considering that AG’s sitemeter is operating normally and the Google traffic is indicating normal traffic of between 45-50k pageviews today. My guess is that it’s an attack being deflected by Google somewhere between Sitemeter picking it up and it interfering with Blogger’s operations. But regardless, UP TO ONE MILLION DAILY PAGEVIEWS isn’t bad.

The broad-spectrum SJW attack

If you think the SJWs will ever leave you alone anywhere, in any industry, you are wrong. Even if you volunteer and provide your time and skills somewhere for free, they will attack you and try to remove you.

CoralineAda commented Jun 18, 2015
Elia Schito is publicly calling trans people out for “not accepting reality” on Twitter. His Twitter profile mentions that he is a core contributor to opal. Is this what the other maintainers want to be reflected in the project? Will any transgender developers feel comfortable contributing?

meh commented Jun 18, 2015
If you want him removed, start working on Opal and contributing as much as him to everything he did for Opal so we have a replacement that’s more in orientation with your morals and views. Protip: you won’t because you can’t.

strand commented Jun 18, 2015
As a queer person this sort of argument from a maintainer makes me feel unwelcome. The ignorance which @elia shows by claiming that transfolk are “not accepting reality” is actively harmful. I will not contribute to this project or any other project which @elia maintains.

aredridel commented Jun 18, 2015
Damn. I found out about this project thanks to this issue, and it’s super relevant to my interests. But not going to come near it with a thousand foot pole if these are the people I’d have to interact with.

bhaibel commented Jun 18, 2015
@meh You’ve said that you’re committed to creating a welcoming environment for new contributors. Saying that is easy. Doing that is hard. You’re failing at it: right now, as a queer woman, I do not believe Opal would treat any contributions I might make fairly. I do not believe that I would be welcomed onto the project.

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it. Notice that none of them actually use Opal or have contributed to it, they just want to execute a drive-by disqualification. This is why SJWs have to be methodically ignored when they run their usual game and removed as soon as they are identified in your organization. They don’t give a quantum of a damn about the project, the job, or the company, all of it is mere grist for their ideological mill.

Macmillan has learned that its SJWs are more concerned about denigrating those who won’t kowtow to their insane ideology than promoting authors or selling books. It would do well to jettison them in their own self-interest, regardless of what we do, because SJWs cannot be rehabilitated and are always focused on furthering their agenda at the expense of their employers.

I was able to attend Representation Beyond Characters and Creating Comics. The former’s panelists were primarily people of color; the latter was all-female, including several women of color. Both talked about sneaking small but relatable details into worldbuilding, the difference between work-for-hire and creator-owned comics, and how publishers have responded to calls for greater diversity. Though the panels took place at different points during the con, they presented a refreshingly diverse lineup talking about real issues in modern storytelling.

However, Bennett cautions, while people are talking about how inclusive and wonderful it’s going to be in the future, they can’t take it as a given. “While I appreciate the optimism, that’s a trap I don’t want to fall into,” she said. “You have to remember that it takes active participation from every single person to make sure we keep this momentum going.”

Read that part again: “active participation from every single person” is required. Translation: they regard totalitarian thought-policing as not only desirable, but necessary.

Mailvox: the sorry state of SF

I thought this email from RC was interesting, as it demonstrates how Gresham’s Law applies to science fiction, with Pink SF tending to drive out Blue. Hey, even if Tor Books can’t be bothered to read your emails, at least I do:

I am writing to you today regarding the lack of professionalism of certain staff at Tor books.  I know others have contacted you regarding the contempt in which some staffers hold certain authors and a large part of your customer base.  What I wish to address is the editors’ contempt for the genre itself, and their incompetence at one of the essential tasks of producing SCIENCE fiction: getting the science right.  I am certain these are related.  The upshot is that Tor is printing a lot of stuff which ticks all the fashionable social and political check-boxes, but stinks on ice as SF.

An egregious example which I encountered recently is in the first of the Ender’s Game prequels, Earth Unaware.  There are a host of glaring faults in the orbital mechanics among other things, but they are too involved to detail in a short letter.  I will instead quote a concise example from page 261:

“The ship scoops up hydrogen atoms, which at near-lightspeed would be gamma radiation, then the rockets shoot this gamma plasma out the back for thrust.”

There is no such thing as a “gamma plasma”.  Gamma rays are photons, not atoms or parts of atoms.  Plasmas are a mixture of ionized matter and free electrons.  A high-energy proton is not a gamma ray; many cosmic rays are high-energy protons, but that does not make this phrase remotely acceptable in a science fiction book.  A well-read middle school science geek could have caught this error; I should know, I was one.

Shortly after this comes another one (p. 269):

“If it’s sucking up hydrogen atoms at near-lightspeed and taking in all this radiation….”

This is part of a plotline that plays for weeks, between a mining ship plying the Kuiper belt and Earth.  The Kuiper belt extends from about 30 astronomical units to 55 AU from the Sun (earth orbits at 1 AU).  Light travels 1 AU in roughly 500 seconds, so an object travelling at “near-lightspeed” would cover 55 AU in not much more than 27,500 seconds; on the order of 8 hours.  Even if the initial speed of the object is reduced to 25% of c and it decelerates linearly, the transit time is less than 3 days.  The whole plotline is nonsense because the author (Johnston, I’m sure; Card does better work) couldn’t be bothered to read a basic science book.  This is lousy even for fan-fiction.  Why did this ever make it to print?  More to the point, why do the editors have such contempt for the genre and its fans as to allow it, to the point of commissioning a lightweight like Johnston to play in Card’s universe in the first place?

I could not but help but notice that Earth Unaware got all the “we are the world”, social justice, anti-corporate messages lined up front and center.  The priorities are literally that obvious.  That’s why I’ve not bothered to read the other two prequels.  I don’t waste my time on dreck. I spotted this trend quite some time ago, but it was only after the highly-publicized outbursts of certain senior Tor staff that I realized that it wasn’t due to the times, but was a matter of policy.

Well, we all make mistakes from time to time, authors and editors alike (cough, tunnel), but it is pretty egregious to combine SJW message fiction with a major plot foul-up of the sort one RC describes. I haven’t read the book, so I can’t testify to the accuracy of his critique, but it does sound like a rather impressive howler.

As for the total number of emails sent, based on the CC’s Peter and I received, around 2,300 emails were sent by 765 different people that we know of. And there were others being sent as well, although we can’t possibly know how many. Regardless, I expect that enough were sent to make it clear to Macmillan that the excuses given by the senior Tor employees for the emails that they previously received was a false one.

Those senior employees have publicly attacked Tor-published authors, Tor published-works, and Tor customers. They have needlessly antagonized tens of thousands of book-buyers in pursuit of their ideological agenda. They’ve now been caught lying to their superiors about the extent of the consequences of their unprofessional behavior and violations of the Macmillan code of conduct. And that is why, at this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if Macmillan cleans house even more thoroughly than people have been demanding. I certainly would if I were in their shoes.

Then again, for all we know the Macmillan executives are fanatic SJWs whose instinct will be to dig in and defend the actions of Irene Gallo, Moshe Feder, and Patrick Nielsen Hayden. If that’s the case, Peter Grant has made it clear that the boycott, which for no particular reason at all may be christened TORDROP, will begin at noon on Friday, June 19th. And since no one has received any sort of response at all from Macmillan or Tom Doherty as yet, this is a good time to take a picture of your books published by Tor Books and tally up the total of the books and ebooks you have purchased from them. The truth is that we’re not asking for much, only that the senior employees at Tor Books be held to the same professional standard expected of a retail sales clerk or a fry cook at McDonalds.

SJWs respond

Chris S on June 15, 2015 at 6:42 am said:

I’ve emailed the poor sods over at Tor. Spoiler: it’s probably not what VD wanted me to say. I did ask them to reconsider their relationship with JCW when the current contract ends.

 [18 minutes later, he added this.]
I did say Irene Gallo’s comments were intemperate, and the use of “neo-nazi” wasn’t justified. It was also in a comment to a Facebook post. But JCW’s continuous spewing of homophobia and misogyny is utterly beyond the pale. It’s not just an offhand comment, it is continuous, on his blog, in his writing, and in his interactions with, well, just about anyone. He also hasn’t apologized for anything he said.

The two are not remotely comparable, in my mind.

In other words, he believes that Tor Books should police its various authors’ opinions, but should not hold its employees responsible for direct attacks on the quality of its own books and on the character of its customers. Fascinating.

And George Rape Rape Martin is concerned, deeply concerned, about the wounds that are being inflicted in this, the most savage civil war in the history of science fiction. RapeSquared was so upset this morning that it put him off writing his daily rape scene, which was a pity as he had a real corker in mind involving Sansa Stark, Wun Wun the giant, four dire wolves, a Wildling wight, and Hodor being warged by Bran Stark.

By now, everyone has bruises. And I fear we will all have more by the time this is done. Did you really think fandom was going to lie back and thank you for gaming the Hugo awards and pissing on fifty years of tradition?

A writer of my acquaintance, older and wiser than myself, has told me that this is worst fight he has ever seen, the nastiest and most divisive war in the long history of our field. Worse than the Exclusion Act. Worse than the Cosmic Circle crap. Worse than the Breendoggle, than the Old Wave/ New Wave struggle, than the competing Vietnam War ads. The wounds will take a long time healing… if indeed they ever heal.

Bruises? Healing? I expect a set of twelve silvered SJW skulls for my dinner table by the time this is over. My dear George, I have had Patrick Nielsen Hayden and the Toad of Tor taking shots at me for 10 years now. I put up with moronic SJWs telling lies about me for years before I finally bothered to do something about it. You think this is war? We’ve barely finished warming up. It’s only been three months since the Hugo shortlist was announced. It will be another 9 years and 9 months of us taking shots at you before we can even begin to consider calling it even.

That reminds me, I still haven’t seen a single person apologize for falsely accusing me of gaming the awards last year. I’m not holding my breath on that one.

Finally, Tintinaus demonstrates why the SJWs keep miscalculating in such an amusingly inept manner. I can’t decide if they are simply innumerate or if their devotion to The Narrative renders basic mathematics inoperative in the event of a contradiction.

From memory Beale said the reason why he was so late in reading TBP was publishers had stopped sending him review copies. He then went on to point out since his blog gets more traffic than Scalzi’s they were cutting their own throats. Of course he used his site figures for April where most of the traffic was people going to check out his slate post after the nominations announcement.

Most of the traffic? Now it’s true, there was a nice traffic increase in April, from 1,583,104 in March to 1,907,664. It slipped back a bit to 1,737,320 in May, and should be right around there again in June. Meanwhile, Scalzi’s best-ever traffic month was 1,027,644 in May 2012, thanks to numerous sites linking his “Easiest Difficulty Setting” post. I’ve averaged more monthly traffic than Scalzi ever had for 26 straight months now. It’s not even close.

I find it amusing that the SJWs keep looking at #Gamergate, or bot-nets, or anything besides what Occam’s Razor dictates. But their problem is that it’s not just me that they’re facing, it’s the Dread Ilk, the Ilk, the Sad Puppies, the Rabid Puppies, and the Evil Legion of Evil. And, most terrible of all, the Vile Faceless Minions.

We Are Real People

Tor Books author John Wright repeats the call:

I have received more messages, publicly and privately, from fans who
enjoy and buy my works but who, deeply offended at at least four,
perhaps more, of the ranking officers of my publisher, have told me they
can no longer buy my works.

This is unprecedented, or, I should
say, at least I have never heard of readers disavowing books based not
on the content or author, but the publisher. Some have likewise written to Tor books to express their displeasure at this high handed and unprofessional treatment.

However, the latest slander issued from the enemy is that these readers do not exist.

They
are trying to blank you out of their minds. You are unpersons. The
claim is that the emails and letters sent to Tor expressing the
displeasure of the customer are said to be faked, counterfeit, written
by robots.

As does Peter Grant:

I’m sure you’ve been reading my posts about the Tor debacle over the past days.  It’s time for action, and I’d be very grateful if each of you would please help by sending one e-mail separately to three different addresses tomorrow.

Vox Day came up with the idea.  Note that I’m not one of his ‘Rabid
Puppies’ or ‘minions’.  I’ll simply take allies where I can get them,
thank you very much!  I’m aware that some SJW’s regard him as being in
league with the Devil.  To that I can only make common cause with
Winston Churchill:  “If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.”  So, Vox, this is my best Churchillian imitation!

As does Tor Books author L. Jagi Lamplighter:

Appalled to see posts suggesting that the emails to Tor—many of which, I am led to understand, are arriving with photos of the reader’s Tor book collections, in some cases, collections worth thousands of dollars—were not legitimate but were sent from automated bots.

Tor Folks:  You may disagree with the Sad/Rabid Puppies, or feel loyalty to your co-workers—but please! Don’t insult our readers by claiming they don’t exist!

Readers:  I realize that, in the age of electronics,this is an unprecedented request, but: if you have a strong opinion that you wish to be heard, it might help if you committed it to physical paper—perhaps along with a printout of your photo of your Tor book collection—and snail mailed it to Tor and Macmillan.

Meanwhile, George Martin demonstrates the truth of the aphorism: “SJWs always lie”:

I have spoken out against name-calling from the first, Brad. It is the
Puppies and their supporters who started it, and who keep dialing it up.
I will concede that you yourself have been mostly civil, but read the
comments in your own blog, or Correia’s, or even on FILE 770, and it is
all venom and epithets.

No, Teresa Nielsen Hayden and Patrick Nielsen Hayden started the name-calling back in March 2005. Martin then goes on to do more of what SJWs always do, which, of course, is lie:

The vast majority of customers have no idea about any of this. The
“unhappiness” here is a campaign orchestrated by the odious Mr. Beale,
and once again you Sad Puppies have lined up behind the Rabids. Early in
this debate, I heard a lot of stuff from your side about careers being
threatened and your opponents saying “you will never work in this town
again” and similar crap. Not one instance of that was ever
substantiated. But now we are seeing a deliberate internet campaign to
cost someone their career — and it is coming from VD, with the full
howling support of Puppies of all stripes. No one on “my side” ever threatened anyone’s livelihood or career. Your side is doing just that. In public.

Emphasis added. That’s an absolutely absurd lie. Look at the post below for starters. Or look at this list of victims of the ongoing SJW witch patrol. And even if we limit Martin’s claim to the small world of science fiction publishing, Charles Stross warned me that I’d somehow managed to unwittingly make “a career-limiting move” by writing an opinion column as a nationally syndicated opinion columnist ten years ago. Martin is not telling the truth. Look, we all know that if Irene Gallo had called Tor’s customers “half-savages” or “hymies” or “faggots” instead of “racist, sexist, homophobic neo-Nazis”, she’d have been disappeared that same day. Are some customers less equal than others in the eyes of Tor Books? Are they less valued?

Note that we’ve seen a Nobel laureate and a principal in Florida banished from the commons in just the two weeks since Ms Gallo’s public attack on Tor customers and Tor authors was first brought to Mr. Doherty’s attention. George Martin’s side has been waging war against people’s livelihoods and careers for years, if not decades. And his side knows it. Hence this little warning ten years ago:

“The people who live and work and pitch their tents in this field have long memories. You’ll have to share the same field with them for a long time — decades, maybe — if you want to be in it at all. And you’ve just offended 75% of them? This is Not Clever. You may not need them now, but you have no idea what your circumstances will look like in ten years’ time…. In a corporate environment it’s sometimes termed a career-limiting move. I think you just made a career-limiting move.”
– Charles Stross, March 5, 2005

In any event, the increased hysteria from the other side means that they know the pressure on Tor Books is growing, from above and from below. Their position is totally indefensible and they know it. So have you sent your three emails yet today? If not, why are you still reading this? If you oppose what you’ve been seeing, then it’s time to get out of the stands and get in the game. It’s time to tell Macmillan that you are a real person and your opinion counts.

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

So much for that theory that there is no other side. Not only has this nonexistent other side, as per Mr. Martin, never done nothing to nobody, but they’re emailing Tor Books and Macmillan too. Because they are also real people who do “not want the community to
reflect the views of Theodore Beale and his rabid puppies.” Of course, they’re missing the central point, which is that it is not the job of anyone at Tor Books to play thought-police and eliminate those views from the community.

      Downfall of a Nobel Laureate

      Sir Tim Hunt and his wife describe how the SJW witch patrol suckered and burned him:

      As jokes go, Sir Tim Hunt’s brief standup routine about women in science last week must rank as one of the worst acts of academic self-harm in history. As he reveals to the Observer, reaction to his remarks about the alleged lachrymose tendencies of female researchers has virtually finished off the 72-year-old Nobel laureate’s career as a senior scientific adviser.

      What he said was wrong, he acknowledges, but the price he and his wife have had to pay for his mistakes has been extreme and unfair. “I have been hung out to dry,” says Hunt.

      His wife, Professor Mary Collins, one of Britain’s most senior immunologists, is similarly indignant. She believes that University College London – where both scientists had posts – has acted in “an utterly unacceptable” way in pressuring both researchers and in failing to support their causes. Certainly the speed of the dispatch of Hunt – who won the 2001 Nobel
      prize in physiology for his work on cell division – from his various
      academic posts is startling….

      “I was told by a senior that Tim had to resign immediately or be sacked – though I was told it would be treated as a low-key affair. Tim duly emailed his resignation when he got home. The university promptly announced his resignation on its website and started tweeting that they had got rid of him. Essentially, they had hung both of us out to dry. They certainly did not treat it as a low-key affair. I got no warning about the announcement and no offer of help, even though I have worked there for nearly 20 years. It has done me lasting damage. What they did was unacceptable.”

      The story appeared in newspapers round the world under headlines that said that Hunt had been sacked by UCL for sexism. Worse was to follow. The European Research Council (ERC) – Hunt served on its science committee – decided to force him to stand down in view of his resignation from UCL….

      Hunt is under no illusions about the consequences. “I am finished,” he
      says. “I had hoped to do a lot more to help promote science in this
      country and in Europe, but I cannot see how that can happen. I have
      become toxic. I have been hung to dry by academic institutes who have
      not even bothered to ask me for my side of affairs.”

      Hunt’s crime? He said this: “Let me tell you about my trouble with girls. Three things happen when they are in the lab. You fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticise them, they cry.”

      I wonder what would have happened if he said the women who worked in his lab were racist neo-Nazis who produced bad-to-reprehensible work?

      Of course, Hunt made two grievous errors. His first error: he apologized when he hadn’t actually done anything wrong. Unlike Irene Gallo, there was nothing wrong with what he said. It was a joke. And it was a joke based on the reality of his long experience. Sure, it was probably a foolish one to make in today’s hyperpoliticized environment, but Dr. Hunt presumably thought that his Nobel Prize and his standing in the field of science would be sufficient to protect him. He was wrong. His second error: he resigned. The university couldn’t possibly have fired him for what he said, but the SJWs lied to his wife and convinced her to convince him to make it easy for them.

      Now contrast this incident with the Gallo affair. Irene Gallo neither apologized for her indefensible statements nor recanted them. She has not resigned. And, unlike the unfortunate Dr. Hunt, she has given her employer more than sufficient reason to fire her for cause.