Tag: SJW

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.

They also serve

It was suggested that they also serve, who inadvertently and unknowingly do the bidding of the Evil Legion of Evil through their ludicrously predictable reactions. And lo, a badge for this brigade of Unwitting Minions was created. Evil Legion of Evil minions are free to award it to those whose behavior is so egregiously stupid or shortsighted or self-destructive that they could not possibly serve your Supreme Dark Lord better if they were consciously doing His Evil Bidding.

Given that they are, without exception, unique and special snowflakes, they naturally all bear the title “Minion #1”.

On a not entirely unrelated note, RI explains why he is now reading this blog and Larry Correia’s books:

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. I’d like to think I stand somewhere in the between you and Corriea. I’ve noticed you’ve been calling attention to some of the unethical book reviewing practices of the SJWs and I found one I thought you would like to point out on your blog.

This person openly admits to downgrading her review after finding out about Correia’s politics.

If I am any evidence of a growing trend, then the SJWs are basically screaming themselves into irrelevance. I am glad you have decided to wade into this and stand up for your beliefs and stand against the terrorism of the left. God bless you, sir.

This is the perspective that is so often ignored. What people are assumed to perceive, and what they will actually perceive, are often two different things. Larry once said that the benefit of telling the truth is that you have no need to worry about keeping your stories straight, and another one is that people tend to recognize those who tell the truth, whether they accept the truth on that particular subject or not.

THEY are in retreat

I told you that George RR Martin has lost the plot. After publicly declining the very debate for which he called, he actually repeated his call for what he already rejected:

Here’s an idea — debate the issue without epithets. Namecalling, whether with old epithets or new ones, is no substitute for actual discussion.

Oh, come on, you cowardly sad sack of an SJW. I gave you the opportunity to debate the issue. Honestly. Civilly. Rationally. You declined. So, guess what that leaves? And while we’re at it, just get it over with and hand the books over to Brandon Sanderson or Joe Abercrombie to finish already.

As Martin’s befuddled post demonstrates, it is readily apparent that science fiction’s CHORFs aren’t entirely confident they are winning anymore. Jim Hines steals yet another page from John Scalzi’s playbook, this time playing the classic “hey, forget my past attacks on you, we’re all just friends who happen to disagree” card:

I am so damn tired of the insistence on shoving everyone and everything into an artificial “Us vs. Them” framework. The Puppies thing is just the latest example. The only clearly defined “side” in this mess is the puppies themselves, and even that’s a slippery argument. Is Theodore Beale of the Rabid Puppies on the same side as Brad Torgersen and Larry Correia? Correia suggests they are: “Look at it like this. I’m Churchill. Brad is FDR. We wound up on the same side as Stalin.” But what about the commenters? Can people support some of what the puppies said they wanted — say, greater awareness of tie-in work in Hugo nominations — without having to swear allegiance to all things rabid?

There is nothing artificial about it. The main reason SJWs were successful in infiltrating the science fiction establishment and imposing their ideology on it was due to their Fabian strategy of denying any conflict was taking place. Their entryism depended entirely upon stealth and plausible deniability. That’s why the single most important aspect of both #GamerGate and #SadPuppies was the way in which it was made perfectly clear to everyone that there are, in fact, two sides.

There are those who want to be able to define what is permissible to read, write, design, develop, play, think, and say, (SJWs) and those who wish to read, write, design, develop, play, think, and say whatever the hell they happen to please. (Everybody else)

Jim Hines isn’t “so damn tired” of “an artificial Us vs. Them framework”. He is simply alarmed that their most effective tactic has been exposed and rendered impotent.

 I keep coming across commentary and arguments that assume you have to be either pro-puppy or anti-puppy. In broader discussions, you’re either us or you’re the enemy. Left or Right. Puppy or CHORF. Lately, I’m seeing more accusations of blacklists and gatekeepers and people’s careers being hurt because of their politics or beliefs or whatever, because some publishers are for Us and some are for Them, and you can’t succeed in this business without swearing allegiance to the Evil Gun Nuts of Baen or the Evil Tree-hugging Lib’ruls of Tor. To be honest, that last bit is funny as hell.

His point might be more convincing if we didn’t have Charles “15 Hugo Nominations” Stross on record warning me about the danger to my career if I didn’t stop writing my op/ed column and start sucking up to the then-Toad of Tor and Tor Senior Editor PNH. Or testimony from everyone from Larry Correia to Sarah Hoyt. You certainly can succeed in this business by fighting the establishment, but that doesn’t mean the establishment doesn’t exist or that it won’t attack you. It’s not like everyone doesn’t know that opinions deemed badthink can not only ruin your chances of getting published by an SJW-dominated publishing house, but get them to conspire to have the SFWA Board vote to “expel” you.

I know some of the Sad Puppies desperately want there to be some kind of
Social Justice Warrior Conspiracy that’s been manipulating the Hugos
and persecuting them for years, because that creates a simple narrative
with them as the feisty rebels striking a blow against the Evil Empire.
But there’s been zero evidence for it. Correia himself said he’d audited
the Hugos a few years back and found no sign of anything suspect.

The lesson, as always, SJWs ALWAYS lie. Correia found no sign of anything suspect in the ballot-counting by the WorldCons. He did not admit there was no SJW conspiracy. A very dishonest switcheroo by McCreepy.

Part of my anger at Torgersen and Correia is because I feel like they deliberately encouraged this Us vs. Them mentality in order to win support and votes. They invented an evil cabal of “Them,” then rallied people to join their side against this fictitious enemy. Which only increases the abuse and the hatred. And please note: I’m angry at them as individuals, not because they’re conservative, or because of their views on gun control, or because they might have a different religious belief than I do. I’m angry because whatever problems were out there, these two individuals actively made them worse, and they hurt a great many people in the process. Themselves included.

Fandom is not two distinct sides. It’s a bunch of people who like things in a really big genre, a genre that has guns and spaceships and dinosaurs and dragons and magic and manly men and genderfluid protagonists and grittiness and erotica and humor and hard-core feminism and sexism and racism and hope and stereotypes and anger and messages and politics and fluff and were-jaguars and superheroes and so much more.

Criticism is not war. Choosing not to read or support things you don’t like isn’t censorship. Liking something problematic doesn’t make you a bad person.

He shouldn’t be angry at Brad and Larry, who both seriously attempted to fix the Hugo system. He should be angry at me, because I have successfully exposed that which Hines and the other SJWs desperately wanted to keep hidden, for the same reason they hid their history of embracing child molesters like Breen, MzB, and Kramer, to name a few. But we didn’t make anything worse, any more than Deidre Saoirse Moen raped any children when she helped bring MzB’s behavior to light.

Criticism isn’t war. But taking over the SF establishment for ideological purposes is war. Of course they don’t like the fact that an opposition has arisen and is fighting back. That’s why they tried to discredit and disqualify and defenestrate me 10 years ago. They correctly sensed a potentially dangerous enemy and attempted to marginalize me. But I’m still here, and more importantly, I am not alone.

That’s why they are suddenly declaring there is no war. But it’s too late. The mask has been ripped off and too many have seen the true face of the SJWs…. as Dave Freer of the Mad Genius Club notes their recent behavior:

But seriously, what have the AP [Anti-Puppies] tried so far, and what success has it brought them?  They’ve brought out media attacks accusing the Puppies and nominees of being sexists, racists, misogynist, homophobes – the usual made-up get out of jail cards rubbish with no substance and some funny twists – we’re all white Mormon men. Especially Sarah Hoyt. And a twenty year bi-racial marriage makes Brad Torgersen a racist. Then the voters weren’t real fans but slaves who voted to order (which was a true PR disaster, angering a huge circle of people).

Then there were the ‘you’ll never work in this town’ again threats to careers and reputations – with the Nielsen-Haydens and David Gerrold shrieking ‘who will rid us of these troublesome puppies?’ and providing precise instructions of what to do. Not a ‘blacklist’ of course (slither). Just things that people would do, like exclude them from publications, cons and reviews. Unlike the puppies, who actively said that their people shouldn’t, for example, boycott Tor, no such criticism came out of the AP. We’ve had people inform us we’re mad (at great length. It was funny, and very revealing – about the bat-sh!t loony writer), and bad, and just downright unfeeling to poor David’s tender sensibilities. Some AP camp-follower called Jane Carnall of Edinburgh, who has written a few opinion pieces in ‘The Guardian, went off and followed the instruction issued on ‘Making Light’ and started issuing fake 1 star reviews on Amazon on John Wright’s stories.

Oh and the cheering announcement that they will ‘No Award’ the Pups nominees out of existence, and we’ll never ever win Hugos. The latest (from a chorus, including Scalzi) has been that if the puppies and nominees do not immediately and forthwith viciously denounce Vox Day they will declare us stupid dupes and one with him. Deserving of his fate too. I’ve kind of lost track of the ‘if you do’ offer. Maybe we’ll be allowed to live out our short miserable lives like penitent whores in a nunnery, being kindly permitted to clean their chamber-pots with our tongues. Think for yourselves what you’d do given that choice: live free and maybe win or die, or surrender and live as a second – or third or fifth class citizen, continually used as a kicking boy?

And if the AP told me otherwise, I wouldn’t believe a word, given their track record. The AP really have credibility issues they need to work on.

Never believe an opponent who tries to tell you the game hasn’t even started yet. And never believe an enemy who tells you that because there is no war, you should stop shooting at him and lay down your arms. Remember, rabbits only win when wolves refuse to fight.

Interestingly enough, after an amount of his usual meandering, R. Scott Bakker reaches much the same conclusion:

 The fact that Beale managed to pull this little coup is proof positive that science fiction and fantasy matter, that we dwell in a rare corner of culture where the battle of ideas is for… fucking… real.

Only it’s not a rare corner. The battle of ideas is ongoing and everywhere throughout the culture. It’s in Games, it’s in Science Fiction, it’s in Comics, and it’s in TV and Movies. And for the first time in decades, those who favor liberty are on the offensive.

SJW science

Whether they call themselves scientists or science fiction writers, the lesson, as always, is this: SJWs always lie. Robert Trivers writes about Stephen Jay Gould, an evolutionary biologist he quickly learned was strongly inclined towards intellectual fraudulence and faux scientific fakery:

Many of us theoretical biologists who knew Stephen personally thought he
was something of an intellectual fraud precisely because he had a
talent for coining terms that promised more than they could deliver,
while claiming exactly the opposite….

Recently something brand new has emerged about Steve that is astonishing. In his own empirical work attacking others for biased data analysis in the service of political ideology—it is he who is guilty of the same bias in service of political ideology. What is worse—and more shocking—is that Steve’s errors are very extensive and the bias very serious. A careful reanalysis of one case shows that his target is unblemished while his own attack is biased in all the ways Gould attributes to his victim. His most celebrated book (The Mismeasure of Man) starts with a takedown of Samuel George Morton. Morton was a scientist in the early 19 th Century who devoted himself to measuring the human cranium, especially the volume of the inside, a rough estimate of the size of the enclosed brain. He did so meticulously by pouring first seeds and then ball bearings into skulls until they were full and then pouring them out and measuring their volume in a graduated cylinder. He was a pure empiricist. He knew brain size was an important variable but very little about the details (indeed, we do not know much more today). He thought his data would bear on whether we were one species or several, but in any case he was busy creating a vast trove of true and useful facts.

I love these people—they work for the future and gather data whose logic later generations will reveal. Precisely because they have no axes to grind or hypotheses to prove, their data are apt to be more reliable than the first wave after a new theory. I have benefitted from them in my own life, most memorably when I was shown a large and accurate literature on ratios of investment in 20 ant species, gathered long before anyone appreciated why these facts might be of some considerable interest, as indeed they were.

In any case, Morton grouped his data by population according to best estimates of gross relatedness, Amerindians with Amerindians, Africans with Africans, Nordic Europeans with Nordic, and so on. It is here, Gould alleged, that all sorts of errors were made that supported preconceived notions that among the smaller cranial capacity (and therefore stupider)) peoples would be Amerindians and Africans. For example, Gould claimed that Morton made more subgroups among Nordic people than tropical ones, thus permitting more of them to be above norm, but in fact, the opposite was true. Morton reported more Amerindian subsamples than European and routinely pointed out when particular Amerindian subsamples were as high or higher than the European mean, facts that Gould claimed Morton hid.

In other cases, Gould eliminates all samples with less than four individuals in order to reduce the number of sub-samples with only one sex—a statistically meaningless goal but one that happened to be biased in his favor and permitted him to make additional errors in his favor by arbitrarily eliminating some skulls while including others. If you are comparing group means, you may not wish to use means of less than four, but if you are adding up sub-samples to produce a larger sample, there is no reason not to aggregate all data. Morton is made to look careless and incorrect when it is really Steve who is arbitrarily biasing things in his own favor.

There is an additional contrast between Morton and Gould worth noting. To conjure up Morton’s mistakes, Gould lovingly describes the action of unconscious bias at work: “Morton, measuring by seed, picks up a threateningly large black skull, fills it lightly and gives a few desultory shakes. Next, he takes a distressingly small Caucasian skull, shakes hard, and pushes mightily at the foramen magnum with his thumb. It is easily done, without conscious motivation; expectation is a powerful guide to action.” Indeed it is, but careful re-measures show that Morton never made this particular mistake—only three skulls were mis-measured as being larger than they were and these were all either Amerindian or African.

The same can’t be said of Gould. He came across distressingly objective data of Morton, and by introducing biased procedures (no sample size below four) he was able to get appropriately biased results. And by misrepresenting the frequency of Nordic vs Amerindian subpopulations, he was able to create an illusion of bias where none existed, by mere emphatic assertion (no one bothered to check).

Where are the unconscious processes at work here? Is Steve flying upside-down on auto-pilot, unconsciously making the choices (substitute Nordic for Tropical, delete all samples smaller than four) that will invite the results he wants while hiding his bias? Is the conscious organism really completely in the dark while all of this is going on? Hard to imagine—but at the end the organism appears to be in full self-deception mode—a blow-hard fraudulently imputing fraud, with righteous indignation, coupled with magnanimous forgiveness for the frailties of self-deception in others.

In response to the criticism of Lewis et al, the keeper of Gould’s Tomb—his longtime editor at Natural History, Richard Milner—had some choice comments in defense of Stephen. Gould acted with “complete conviction and integrity” (that is, with full self-deception). “He was a tireless crusader against racism in any form.” (In what way is misrepresenting the true facts about population differences—and then hiding this misrepresentation—a contribution to anti-racism?) And then, fully in flight, he says that any bias was “on the side of the angels”. Who of us is in any position to say what is on the side of the angels? We barely know what is in our own self-interest.

Quelle surprise. Anti-racism is intrinsically anti-science.

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?


It should be interesting to see what his response is. And if he fails to respond, well, that will be even more telling. The important thing to keep in mind is that no one exchange is final. There will always be tactical mistakes, missteps, and dead ends. They will happen, so don’t try to hide them, just admit them, clarify, and move on.

At the root, of course, this is just more SJW word games. When game journalists attack gamers and game developers, they call it criticism. When #GamerGate responds in kind, they call it harassment.

UPDATE: Futrelle responds, knowing perfectly well how one could hammer him for the statement.

David Futrelle ‏@DavidFutrelle
@voxday They have the right to say it, though not to threaten or harass; others have the right to call them out for their misogyny.

Now, if I were an SJW, this would be my cue to point and shriek that “MISOGYNIST DAVID FUTRELLE SAYS WOMEN SHOULDN’T DEVELOP GAMES!” But I’m not and I won’t bother, because it doesn’t matter.

Yeah, so, about that….

What’s the lesson? No, not the one about women, the one about SJWs:

John Scalzi ‏@scalzi 
I’m not the Anti-Beale. I’m merely the person who Beale so very desperately wishes he had the career of.

Deirdre Saoirse Moen ‏@deirdresm
Which is why his Alexa rank is < 1000 milliScalzis.

Notorious E.G.G. ‏@silvermink
Though, I have to say, his Alexa rank is much closer to that number than my faith in humanity can handle sometimes.

John Scalzi ‏@scalzi
Trust me, if his Alexa score ever gets above mine, he’ll trumpet it to the heavens.

Deirdre Saoirse Moen ‏@deirdresm
It wasn’t until I looked at the puppy Alexa rankings that I understood why RP was more successful than SP. Sigh.

Notorious E.G.G. ‏@silvermink
People actually listen to Mr. Beale, mindboggling as I find that.

John Scalzi ‏@scalzi
Yeah, but they’re assholes.

Notorious E.G.G. ‏@silvermink
A bit of a saving grace, it’s true.

Jonathan Bergeron
now that’s a burn

John Scalzi ‏@scalzi
It’s not the Alexa award. It’s that the RPs appealed more to people happy to shit all over other people.

Deirdre Saoirse Moen ‏@deirdresm
 I figured as much (and said so in response to a comment).

Marty ‏@hugbug94
VDBEALE doesn’t have the writing chops to be in your league.

John Scalzi ‏@scalzi
Thanks, although I would not that for commercial success, writing chops are not always required.

Current Alexa Ranks

Scalzi Global: 84,147
Scalzi USA: 18,628

VP Global: 84,187
VP USA: 17,599

Now, Alexa is a ridiculous measure, as it is based on links rather than the more straightforward metric of traffic. At present, VP alone has about 3x Scalzi’s Google pageview traffic, and VP+AG has about 4x the traffic. If history is any guide, we should see the first 2 million-pageview month in August; this month is on course for 1.9 million+ combined.

But, as is our wont, let us count the lies:

  1. I very desperately wish I had John Scalzi’s career. I’m a lead game designer, a lead editor, and a minor author. He’s a very successful midlist author who is making some headway in television and failed as a game writer. My blogs surpass his by a factor of four and are nearly double his all-time peak. My Twitter Impression/follower ratio is considerably higher (355 to 125), and despite having only one-fifth the Impressions and one-seventeenth the followers, I expect my Impressions will pass up his within 18 months.
  2. I will trumpet to the heavens if my Alexa score ever passes his. It did, months ago. I didn’t. That’s VP alone, by the way, VP+AG is far beyond his, as AG alone is around 105k Global.
  3. People who read here are assholes. Actually, according to the demographics, you’re much wealthier and better-educated than the norm. And considering how lightly I moderate, I think it’s self-evident that most people here are more civil than average as well. You’re certainly less vulgar than Scalzi’s commenters, for the most part. I like you, anyhow. Obviously, he doesn’t.
  4. RPs appealed more to people happy to shit all over other people. Considering how the SJWs have treated the 2015 nominees, this is certainly false when compared to them. But compared to Sad Puppies, that’s probably true. It’s an unfair and misleading exaggeration, but not a lie.
  5. VDBEALE doesn’t have the writing chops to be in Scalzi’s league. Actually, I’d put us both right in the same league. We’re both mediocre, albeit for very different reasons. My Style has no melody, no flare. It is plodding and pedestrian whereas Scalzi’s Style is light and breezy. Scalzi can’t do characters and they all speak in one snarky voice: his own. My characters are diverse and distinct, albeit limited to the upper half of the male spectrum. I think Story comes out fairly equal, although he directly rips off the greats whereas I merely borrow here and there, Concept is also fairly even, his clever stunts versus my worldbuilding.

Help the Honey Badgers

The Honey Badgers were kicked out of Calgary Expo, apparently for the thoughtcrime of supporting GamerGate by selling GG t-shirts. Here is another chance to strike back at the SJWs:

The Honey Badger Brigade is now seeking legal advice to hold the Calgary Expo staff accountable for their acts of abuse and discrimination against us. We have made attempts in the past week to diffuse the situation by attempting to contact Mr. Kelly Dowd, owner of the Calgary Expo. We have received no response.

On April 17th 2015, the Honey Badger Brigade was forcibly evicted and our booth ordered removed, despite our operating well within the rules of the Expo and it’s policies of conduct. We were not given a chance to dispute the alleged complaints. The organization violated its own stated policy in the process and has released conflicting claims regarding its reasons for our removal.

Those claims indicate that we were removed due to our Men’s Rights Activism and unpopular view of modern feminism. Therefore it is our belief that the actions taken by the Calgary Expo staff were of a political nature and contravene the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, in particular freedom of conscience, freedom of thought and freedom of association.

If so, this eviction was based in discrimination, an act that has defamed and abused us. While we would prefer to settle this outside of a courtroom, we are prepared to take every legal action needed to ensure that ourselves and other future exhibitors will be treated equally, and without such a denial of their fundamental human rights.

All funds submitted to this fundraiser will be used for legal costs and costs directly related to our ejection from the Calgary Comics and Entertainment Expo. We will be keeping track of expenses and providing expense reports as we’re able.

If you’re a member of the Dread Ilk, Rabid Puppies, or #GamerGate, I’d encourage you to start a little coffee fund. Nothing much, maybe save your change or devote $5 per month to support the little causes such as these that are going to continue to arise. If we all do that, and judiciously apply this financial ammunition, the force multiplication of doing it at the same time at critical junctures can have a disproportionate impact.

I’m not going to bring up every little thing, but if one seems particularly useful or hits in a critical area, I will bring it to your attention. The Honey Badgers are significant because they are being attacked primarily to prevent the GamerGate virus from spreading into other potentially anti-SJW women’s groups.

Remember, the SJWs always focus their ire and their fire at the weak links and the inroads. That’s why they put pressure on the likes of Annie Bellet, not Steve Rzasa or Tom Kratman, to withdraw from the Hugo shortlist. If we can continue to knock them back at those points of resistance, they’ll crumble much more rapidly than they will from steady, constant pressure.

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.

Diversity is Equality

Anyone who has been paying attention has been aware of this for a while, but now it’s being openly admitted by the SJWs:

A students’ union has been accused of racism and sexism after banning white people and men from an event to promote equality. Those studying at Goldsmiths, University of London, were invited to the students’ union meeting to discuss ‘diversifying the curriculum’.

But they were shocked when an organiser told white people and men ‘not to come’ as it was only open to BME [black and minority ethnic] women.

Bahar Mustafa, Welfare and Diversity Officer, at Goldsmiths University in London sparked anger when she banned men and white people from a ‘diversity’ meeting. Students have reacted with anger after men and white people were banned from a ‘diversity’ meeting at Goldsmiths University in London.

In the same way that feminist “EQUALITY” doesn’t actually mean equal treatment for everyone, the SJW “DIVERSITY” doesn’t actually mean that the advocate seeks diverse perspectives or participation.

What EQUALITY really means is female supremacy. What DIVERSITY really means is non-white, non-Christian, non-male supremacy.

It is very important to never take words at face value when they are coming out of the mouth of an SJW. Always take the time to determine what they actually mean. Why? Because SJWs always lie.

When I said “always, I meant “always”.

In re SJWs. This chubbo just can’t stop digging deeper:

Alexandra Erin ‏@alexandraerin
Anyone else notice that the thing the Sad Puppies take exception with David Gerrold for saying is “nobody wants to hang out with assholes”?

Alexandra Erin ‏@alexandraerin
They read into that the threat of a blacklist, which is a stretch, but it’s more than that.

Alexandra Erin ‏@alexandraerin
As much as the SPs/RPs keep singing the refrain of “WE DON’T CARE”, it hurts them that people don’t have to like them.

Alexandra Erin ‏@alexandraerin
It hurts them that people don’t have to like the books they write, or the books they like.

Alexandra Erin ‏@alexandraerin
It hurts them so much that they have to invent an entire alternate reality where no one REALLY dislikes them except a small clique.

Alexandra Erin ‏@alexandraerin
“The problem isn’t that I’m an asshole no one wants to associate with outside my own small clique!” they say. “People are just scared.”

Alexandra Erin ‏@alexandraerin
“I’m actually super popular and everyone loves me. They’re just too afraid to say so.”

Alexandra Erin ‏@alexandraerin
No one as immune to the “feelbads” as the puppies claim to be could be threatened by the statement “no one wants to hang out with assholes.”

Alexandra Erin ‏@alexandraerin
You know what it means when they clamor for David Gerrold to be sanctioned for stating the simple truth that people don’t like assholes?

Alexandra Erin ‏@alexandraerin
It means they’re asking for censorship. Of course, they’ve been demanding censorship all along. They just dress it up as different things.

Alexandra Erin ‏@alexandraerin
The only difference between “I don’t think stories I don’t like should be praised or nominated” and what the puppies are doing is HONESTY.

Alexandra Erin ‏@alexandraerin
It’s the same dodge GG uses with its shielding battlecry of “ETHICS!”

Alexandra Erin ‏@alexandraerin
Saying, “I don’t think people should be allowed to praise this story/game” = obvious game over. So they say “Anyone doing so must be LYING.”

Alexandra Erin ‏@alexandraerin
And then, oh, then… then they’re not arguing for censorship, but arguing against deception! Who could oppose that?

Alexandra Erin ‏@alexandraerin
David Gerrold said, very simply and very clearly, that people don’t like to hang out with assholes. Is that not manifestly true?

Alexandra Erin ‏@alexandraerin
Not one Sad Puppy will address this because it doesn’t fit their narrative. Facts? Who needs them! They FEEL attacked by it. That’s enough.

Alexandra Erin @alexandraerin
Heck, Gerrold even explicitly said he’s not talking about a blacklist. But liar-in-chief Vox Day said Gerrold “literally” called for one.

 Vox Day ‏@voxday
.@alexandraerin Exactly when and where did I say “Gerrold ‘literally’ called for” a blacklist? What is the exact quote you are quoting?

In the meantime, while he/she/it is busy searching for that nonexistent lie, let’s not forget the following statement by Mr. Gerrold. Presumably he is only telling Brad this in order to ensure no one has to hang out with bodily orifices.

“I will make sure you NEVER win a Hugo!” – David Gerrold to Brad Torgersen on Facebook.

The “no blacklist” argument is about as convincing as David Gerrold coming out on stage at WorldCon in a leopard print g-string, dancing to Erasure under a disco ball with a dog leash around his neck held by a bald man wearing nothing but a mustache and leather chaps, then holding up his hands and insisting, “no homo”.

Let’s face it, if the Nielsen Haydens were caught red-handed making a list of writers who would never be permitted to publish at Tor.com, the SJWs would claim it wasn’t a blacklist so long as the names were written in blue ink.