Tag: SJW

The evils of SF fandom

It’s time to shut down all science fiction-related conventions. They are obviously dens of pure racist, sexist, homophobic iniquity. Frankly, it is very, very hard to read this tale of SJW-on-SJW woe without shedding a tear or three. Of pure schadenfreudesque amusement:

On Friday night, at a room party in the main hotel, my partner Baize was sexually and racially harassed by someone attending the same dance party: Liz Gooch. At multiple points during the evening, she gestured behind him as if she were going to grab his butt. She kept referring to it as his “juicy booty.” She danced around him and told me to “not let this sweet piece of chocolate go.” Despite that our body language clearly showed discomfort, Liz would not stop harassing either of us. We had to move to another side of the room, and we eventually told the person running the party what she was doing. We both considered that perhaps she had been so forward and gross because she was drunk, but I had multiple interactions with Liz Gooch when she was sober following that night. The next morning, she was leaving an elevator as I was getting in a different one. She turned around and made a number of sexual gestures while pointing at Baize, which including kissing faces, winks, and licking her lips in an exaggerated manner.

On Sunday afternoon, I was the moderator on a panel titled, “Erasure is Not Equality.” This panel was specifically about the erasure of people of color in historical fiction, fantasy, and other genres. I was the only person on the panel who was not white. Furthermore, not one person on the panel seemed to understand the point of the panel, which was to talk about erasure. Instead, the conversation teetered between self-righteous back-patting and flat-out racism. Within the first five minutes of the start of the panel, I brought up a topic for us to discuss: how “historical accuracy” is often poorly used as a defense of the erasure of people of color. One panelist, Chris Gerrib, then began to talk about how people misunderstood history. The “Indian” people in Central America were already busy “killing each other” by the time the Spaniards arrived. When I asked for clarification, Gerrib confirmed that he believed that the Spaniards were “unfairly blamed” for the genocide of the indigenous cultures in Central America. I was so horrified by his continued talk of this ahistorical point that, after very little conversation, I asked that we change topic.

This set a tone for the remainder of the panel, which was easily the worst panel I have ever been a part of. All three of the white panelists confidently stated things that were simply not true; each of them kept saying “Indian” when they actually meant Native American or indigenous; every few minutes, more than half the audience was viscerally horrified by what the other panelists said. At one point, Jan Gephardt derailed the panel into talking about women instead of race and said that she was “happy to see any sort of women, like black or white or green.” Gerrib then chimed in with, “Or purple.” She also responded to a lengthy point that myself and an audience member made about the physical and emotional injury that can come from experiencing racism by reminding us that “racism is not real” because race “is just a social construct.” During a different conversation about how many authors mistakenly blur the line between different cultural groups, Chris Gerrib jokingly said, “Did you know that the Japanese aren’t the same as the Chinese?” Jan’s response? The Japanese and Chinese just think they’re different in their heads. She heavily implied that they were mistaken in this belief.

Holly Messinger, a ConQuesT staff member, was also on the panel. She spent a great deal of time talking only about her own work, repeating the message that she had read “five books on Indians” and that she had written her first black character, who kept the white character “sane.” She stated at one point that she was “terrified” about the response her book would get because people would get “mad” about her writing an “Indian” character. When I asked for clarification – specifically, was she worried about getting representation wrong? – she told the room that she had no concern about that. She’d read five books about “Indians.” She was concerned that people of color would misinterpret her.

There were many more incidents on this panel, and I could not recount them all here. The panel ended on a sour note, too. Baize spoke up and pointed out that part of the problem with erasure was that there was only one person of color on a panel about race. Holly Messinger shot back, “Well, we’re in the Midwest.” I left the panel feeling drained and numb. If you were at ConQuesT that weekend and you wondered why Closing Ceremonies started late, it’s my fault. I dashed up to my hotel room to cry because I felt so triggered, rejected, and alone. I’ve been on uncomfortable panels, but this was unique. The entire panel was argumentative; my questions as moderator were constantly avoided or ignored; anything I tried to state was fought or dismissed or contradicted. It was exhausting.

On the plus side, reading this was considerably more entertaining than the entire Best Novel shortlist for the Nebula Award:

  • Raising Caine, Charles E. Gannon (Baen)
  • The Fifth Season, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
  • Ancillary Mercy, Ann Leckie (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
  • The Grace of Kings, Ken Liu (Saga)
  • Uprooted, Naomi Novik (Del Rey)
  • Barsk: The Elephants’ Graveyard, Lawrence M. Schoen (Tor)
  • Updraft, Fran Wilde (Tor)

The Nebula Award is so predictable now that Chaos Horizon nailed all seven of seven before they were announced. Here’s what I predicted would be in the awards mix back in December, prior to reading any of them, and based on nothing but who the author is.

  • Uprooted by Naomi Novik (Del Rey)
  • Ancillary Mercy by Anne Leckie (Orbit)
  • Karen Memory by Elizabeth Bear (Tor)
  • The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin (Orbit)

They ought to just change the name of the Nebulas to the Science Fiction Affirmative Action Awards for Women and Minorities Who Don’t Write Good.

Twitter takes out McCain

The thought police at Twitter are ramping up their activity:

Robert Stacy McCain is an American success story. He has built a nationwide, dare I say worldwide following presenting his viewpoint and highlighting the public viewpoints of others who would rather keep their actual words and opinions under the radar because Robert Stacy McCain is loyal to his family, his God, his friends and the Truth.

I know this because I’m proud to say he is my friend. I’ve learned an awful lot from him the most important thing being there is no substitute for actually being there, gathering factual evidence, seeing for yourself and reporting the truth.

I guess that’s why Twitter’s new Star Chamber has decided to Suspend him sometime yesterday evening:

    I’m Robert Stacy McCain. I’ve been a journalist since 1986. My account @rsmccain was suspended tonight. #FreeStacy #tcot @ToniMZ81

    — Sex Trouble (@SexTroubleBook) February 20, 2016

    “@citznsoldier: This account suspension stuff is getting stupid. @twitter @rsmccain pic.twitter.com/dlckr17fsw” Very stupid

    — headnev (@headnev) February 20, 2016

Ironically this caused the hashtag #freestacy to trend on twitter overnight until it suddenly no longer was able to autocomplete

    The hashtag associated with McCain’s suspension (#FreeStacy) was actually allowed to trend, at one point, but as Mike Cernovich points out, now it won’t even autocomplete. That’s one of the tools Twitter has been using to slow down hashtags, as of late. GamerGate no longer autocompletes, either, even though several anti-GG hashtags do.

    #FreeStacy is trending. @instapundit pic.twitter.com/y4C2azmWzr

    — Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich) February 20, 2016

Now in fairness Twitter is a private company and they do have the right to run their business as they see fit.

But I submit and suggest to twitter & their investors that the way to success is not to alienate half of your potential customer base particularly in an election year, furthermore as anyone who knows anything about tech can tell you today’s popular site can become tomorrow’s AOL & Compuserve in a heartbeat.

Glenn Reynolds is not the only one losing patience with Twitter.

The obnoxious and obtuse left

The leftist technocrats of San Francisco don’t seem to grasp that when the revolution comes, they’re going to be among the first strung up. And in light of their entitled attitudes, deservedly so.

I am writing today, to voice my concern and outrage over the increasing homeless and drug problem that the city is faced with. I’ve been living in SF for over three years, and without a doubt it is the worst it has ever been. Every day, on my way to, and from work, I see people sprawled across the sidewalk, tent cities, human feces, and the faces of addiction. The city is becoming a shanty town… Worst of all, it is unsafe.

This holiday weekend, I had my parents in town from Santa Barbara and relatives from Denver and Rochester New York. Unfortunately, there was three separate incidents and countless times that we were approached for money and harassed.

The first incident involved a homeless drunken man in the morning coming up to their car and leaning up against it. Another bystander got frustrated with the drunken man, and they got into a heated pushing and shoving altercation.

The second incident occurred as we were leaving Tadich Grill in the financial district. A distraught, and high person was right in front of the restaurant, yelling, screaming, yelling about cocaine, and even, attempted to pull his pants down and show his genitals.

Finally, last night Valentines, I was at Kabuki Theater inside watching a movie. About two hours into the film, a man stumbled in the front door. He proceeded to walk into the theater, down the aisle to the front, wobbled toward the emergency door, opened it, and then took his shirt off and laid down. He then came back into the theater shielding his eyes from the running projector. My girlfriend was terrified and myself and many people ran out of the theater.

What are you going to do to address this problem? The residents of this amazing city no longer feel safe. I know people are frustrated about gentrification happening in the city, but the reality is, we live in a free market society. The wealthy working people have earned their right to live in the city. They went out, got an education, work hard, and earned it. I shouldn’t have to worry about being accosted. I shouldn’t have to see the pain, struggle, and despair of homeless people to and from my way to work every day. I want my parents when they come visit to have a great experience, and enjoy this special place.

I am telling you, there is going to be a revolution. People on both sides are frustrated, and you can sense the anger. The city needs to tackle this problem head on, it can no longer ignore it and let people do whatever they want in the city. I don’t have a magic solution… It is a very difficult and complex situation, but somehow during Super Bowl, almost all of the homeless and riff raff seem to up and vanish. I’m willing to bet that was not a coincidence. Money and political pressure can make change. So it is time to start making progress, or we as citizens will make a change in leadership and elect new officials who can.

 “I shouldn’t have to see the pain.” Yes, that sums it all up right there. God forbid that he actually attempt to do anything about it himself. No wonder the white SJWs are starting to get scared. They’re starting to realize that their mercenary army of immigrants and impoverished hates them as much as it hates the white traditionalists they were imported to destroy.

And we’re sure as hell not going to defend him.

Matz slaps down Typhoid Coraline

The successful defense of Ruby against SJW infiltrators demonstrates the importance of having a strong project leader rather than a committee, or worse, a democracy, running an open source software project:

The Ruby Community Conduct Guideline

We have picked the following conduct guideline based on an early draft of the PostgreSQL CoC, for Ruby developers community for safe, productive collaboration. Each Ruby related community (conference etc.) may pick their own Code of Conduct.

This document provides community guidelines for a safe, respectful, productive, and collaborative place for any person who is willing to contribute to the Ruby community. It applies to all “collaborative space”, which is defined as community communications channels (such as mailing lists, submitted patches, commit comments, etc.).

  • Participants will be tolerant of opposing views.
  • Participants must ensure that their language and actions are free of personal attacks and disparaging personal remarks.
  • When interpreting the words and actions of others, participants should always assume good intentions.
  • Behaviour which can be reasonably considered harassment will not be tolerated.

It’s worth noting that this not only defeats the primary, secondary, and tertiary purposes of the Code of Conduct that Typhoid Coraline was attempting to install in order to unseat Matz, but it can obviously be used effectively against SJW entryists.

No wonder Typhoid is so upset. It’s a superficial victory of absolutely no utility for him.

Coraline Ada Ehmke ‏@CoralineAda
This is very disappointing. No one to report abuse to. No recourse for victims of harassment. Poor showing, Ruby.

Coraline Ada Ehmke ‏@CoralineAda
Sad that Ruby still doesn’t have a code of conduct. I don’t know what to call that thing.

Coraline Ada Ehmke ‏@CoralineAda
Unfortunately I fear that it will take a nasty incident for Matz to change his mind
about a code of conduct. I feel bad about this.

Shadowbanned by SJWs

Twitter knows the SJWs can’t win on a level playing field, which is why they are attempting to silence the influential voices of the social media Right:

Rumours that Twitter has begun ‘shadowbanning’ politically inconvenient users have been confirmed by a source inside the company, who spoke exclusively to Breitbart Tech. His claim was corroborated by a senior editor at a major publisher.

According to the source, Twitter maintains a ‘whitelist’ of favoured Twitter accounts and a ‘blacklist’ of unfavoured accounts. Accounts on the whitelist are prioritised in search results, even if they’re not the most popular among users. Meanwhile, accounts on the blacklist have their posts hidden from both search results and other users’ timelines.

Our source was backed up by a senior editor at a major digital publisher, who told Breitbart that Twitter told him it deliberately whitelists and blacklists users. He added that he was afraid of the site’s power, noting that his tweets could disappear from users’ timelines if he got on the wrong side of the company.

Shadowbanning, sometimes known as “Stealth Banning” or “Hell Banning,” is commonly used by online community managers to block content posted by spammers. Instead of banning a user directly (which would alert the spammer to their status, prompting them to create a new account), their content is merely hidden from public view.

For site owners, the ideal shadowban is when a user never realizes he’s been shadowbanned.

However, Twitter isn’t merely targeting spammers. For weeks, users have been reporting that tweets from populist conservatives, members of the alternative right, cultural libertarians, and other anti-PC dissidents have disappeared from their timelines.

Among the users complaining of shadowbans are sci-fi author and alt-right figurehead Vox Day, geek culture blogger “Daddy Warpig,” and the popular pro-Trump account Ricky Vaughn. League of Gamers founder and former World of Warcraft team lead Mark Kern, as well as adult actress and anti-censorship activist Mercedes Carrera, have also reported that their tweets are not appearing on the timelines of their followers.

It’s pretty easy to tell when you’re being shadowbanned because your notifications decline dramatically. It’s also easy to see it in the 28-day profile.

Notice how despite the number of tweets being flat and the number of followers increasing, the number of impressions and profile visits dropped significantly at precisely the same time. As it happens, that’s right when I noticed my notifications declining and people began letting me know that they weren’t seeing my tweets.

The reason mentions don’t drop as heavily is because for an account with less than 10,000 followers, many of my mentions are not made in response to my tweets and are therefore not affectived by the shadowban.

But never fear. Alternatives are on the way.

SJWAL: an epiphany

Bryan has been contemplating SJWs Always Lie and a second reading inspired him to a deeper understanding of SJW objectives.

Having twice read this book, and having for a while now been digesting its contents, I’ve come to a sudden and clarifying realization –

SJWs are not out to stop abuse — they are out to obtain a monopoly on it.

This explains why they so fervently and universally seek positions of power and to manipulate procedure to empower themselves. From gutting the right to due process in academia to making it impossible to obtain the identity of your accuser in the workplace, SJWs in academic administration and corporate HR are exercising ill-gotten power to destroy the livelihoods and lives of those who oppose their world view and odious conduct.

The organization they have captured such as Yahoo!, Twitter, and OSS communities are slowly dying deaths of a thousand distractions. Their specialty seems to spin narratives and organize against important developers who won’t carry their ideological water, or who oppose their encroachment. The best engineers in the world are leaving in droves due to maltreatment at the hands of politically-appointed executives and HR departments growing ever more vicious and unrestrained against employees. An SJW HR department, having gained enough momentum, will even strong arm the very CEOs and CTOs for who they are supposed to, at a minimum function.

He’s correct. In fact, they are out to obtain a monopoly on more than abuse, they are out to obtain a monopoly on power through the means of controlling information flow.

This was always true of Wikipedia, but it has become increasingly obvious through the actions of Goodreads, Twitter, Facebook, and even Google. They are attempting to police the public’s thoughts through controlling the information accessible to it. It’s a soft form of intellectual totalitarianism imposed through seduction rather than force.

This is why projects like Brave and Big Fork are so vitally important and should be supported by everyone who values freedom, including the freedoms of speech, expression, and thought. And speaking of the latter project, we are approximately 2-3 weeks away from early access. Don’t ask for it now, because if you’re on the list, you already know what’s going on. If you’re not sure, then you’re not on the list and will need to be patient.

Shadowbanned!

Apparently the Twitterthorities have deemed that I, too, am a threat to the innocent minds of the Twittership:

Dharma Warrior ‏@India_empower
@voxday strangely, your tweets don’t show up on my TL. I have to visit your Twitter page to read ur tweets.

Supreme Dark Lord ‏@voxday
It’s the Twitter shadowban. They’re trying to limit the reach of the Alt Right because we are too appealing.

I feel like Neal Patrick Harris at the end of the execrable Starship Troopers movie.

“They’re afraid… they’re afraid of us!” 

We don’t need to silence them in order to win. We only have to make sure that our voices are heard.

He didn’t read the book

Marc Andreessen discovers that an apology is never the end:

Facebook just lost an important legal fight in India, and now one of its board members has complicated its next steps. The mess started when Silicon Valley venture capitalist Marc Andreessen took to Twitter to criticize India’s decision to block Facebook from offering free but limited Internet access to poor areas. At one point, when a critic likened Andreessen’s position to “Internet colonialism,” he shot back, “Anti-colonialism has been economically catastrophic for the Indian people for decades. Why stop now?” recounts the Wall Street Journal. That sentiment drew widespread condemnation and prompted Mark Zuckerberg himself to quickly distance himself from it. And in a series of tweets, Andreessen apologized for his “ill-informed and ill-advised comment.”

On his Facebook page, Zuckerberg used stronger language, describing the tweet as “deeply unsettling” and making clear that the company “strongly” rejects it. The controversy revolves around a program called Free Basics. As CNET explains, an Indian court declared that the concept violated Net neutrality rules because it would have provided free access to the Internet but only to a limited number of services.

It’s amazing how Mark Zuckerberg continues to find ways to be a prissily annoying little punch-face. I don’t care how rich and influential he is; you couldn’t pay me to trade places with him. His spineless, parasitical existence strikes me as an absolute living hell.

Women, science, and sex

The SJWs in science are setting up their favorite damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t scenario for male scientists. If you don’t bring young women along with you on your trips, you’re a damnable sexist. And if you do, you’re a sexual predator.

On a cold evening last March, as researchers descended upon St. Louis, Missouri, for the annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists (AAPA), a dramatic scene unfolded at the rooftop bar of the St. Louis Hilton at the Ballpark, the conference hotel. From here, attendees had spectacular views of the city, including Busch Stadium and the Gateway Arch, but many were riveted by an animated discussion at one table.

Loudly, and apparently without caring who heard her, a research assistant at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City charged that her boss—noted paleoanthropologist Brian Richmond, the museum’s curator of human origins—had “sexually assaulted” her in his hotel room after a meeting the previous September in Florence, Italy. (She requested that her name not appear in this story to protect her privacy.) Over the next several days, as the 1700 conference attendees presented and discussed the latest research, word of the allegations raced through the meeting.

Richmond, who was also at the meeting, has vigorously denied the accusations in a statement to Science and in email responses. (He declined to be interviewed in person or by telephone.) The encounter in the hotel room, he wrote, was “consensual and reciprocal,” adding that “I never sexually assaulted anyone.”

Although the most recent high-profile cases of sexual harassment in science have arisen in astronomy and biology, many researchers say paleoanthropology also has been rife with sexual misconduct for decades. Fieldwork, often in remote places, can throw senior male faculty and young female students together in situations where the rules about appropriate behavior can be stretched to the breaking point. Senior women report years of unwanted sexual attention in the field, at meetings, and on campus. A widely cited anonymous survey of anthropologists and other field scientists, called the SAFE study and published in July 2014 in PLOS ONE, reported that 64% of the 666 respondents had experienced some sort of sexual harassment, from comments to physical contact, while doing fieldwork.

Even a few years ago, the research assistant might not even have aired her complaint, as few women—or men—felt emboldened to speak out about harassment. Of the 139 respondents in the SAFE study who said they experienced unwanted physical contact, only 37 had reported it. Those who remained silent may have feared retaliation. Senior paleoanthropologists control access to field sites and fossils, write letters of recommendation, and might end up as reviewers on papers or grant proposals. “The potential for [senior scientists] to make a phone call and kill a career-making paper feels very real,” says Leslea Hlusko, a paleontologist at the University of California (UC), Berkeley.

It will be interesting to learn if the female scientists entering the field will be sufficient to make up for the male scientists they drive from it. The history of social justice convergence indicates that not only will they fail to make up for it, but that all actual scientific activity will cease once a critical mass is reached.

It’s rather remarkable that the Richmond situation is being portrayed as him sexually assaulting her when she was in his hotel room. I suspect that the charge of sexual assault are nothing more than her trying to cover for the fact that she was more or less cheating on her husband. They were out drinking with their colleagues, all of whom would have known that she went back to his room with him.

Remember, it’s much better to be deemed a sexist than a sexual assailant. Don’t mentor women in person, don’t go out of your way to help them, don’t befriend them (particularly if you find them attractive), and don’t go out to dinner with them alone. If you can’t avoid it due to work, insist on lunch. Definitely don’t go out for drinks or to a club. Don’t hug or kiss them, and don’t let them touch you except to shake your hand. Don’t ever give the SJWs an opening to take you down.

The SJWs would love nothing better than to try to do to me what they’ve done to everyone from Jian Gomeshi to James Frenkel. They can’t, because I never give them even the slightest molehill out of which to make a mountain.

The SF gatekeepers strike again

Both Sarah Hoyt and I have previously written about the ideological gatekeepers in publishing, a situation that has persisted for at least 20 years and has continually gotten worse over time. The SJWs in science fiction deny it,of course, and they’ve been able to get away with doing so because most authors are afraid to talk for fear of their careers being destroyed.

But the ability to publish independently is eliminating that fear:

I launched a book this week and I went Indie with it. Indie means I released it on Amazon via Kindle Direct Publishing. I had to. My Publisher, HarperVoyager, refused to publish it because of some of the ideas I wrote about in it. In other words, they were attempting to effectively ban a book because they felt the ideas and concepts I was writing about were dangerous and more importantly, not in keeping with their philosophical ideals. They felt my ideas weren’t socially acceptable and were “guaranteed to lose fifty percent of my audience” as related back to me by my agent. But more importantly… they were “deeply offended”….

apparently advancing the thought that a brand new life form might see
us, humanity, as dangerous because we terminate our young, apparently…
that’s a ThoughtCrime most heinous over at Harper Collins. Even for one
tiny little chapter.

Here’s what happened next. I was not given notes as writers are
typically given during the editorial process. I was told by my agent
that my editor was upset and “deeply offended” that I had even dared
advanced this idea. As though I had no right to have such a thought or
even game the idea within a science fiction universe. I was immediately
removed from the publication schedule which as far as I know is odd and
unprecedented, especially for an author who has had both critical and
commercial success. This, being removed from the production schedule,
happened before my agent had even communicated the editor’s demand that I
immediately change the offending chapter to something more “socially”
(read “progressive”) acceptable. That seemed odd. How could they
possibly have known that I would or would not change it? It seems
reasonable to ask first. And stating that I would lose fifty percent of
my readers if I wrote what I wrote, well, they never seem to mind, or
worry about losing readers, when other writers publish their
progressive-oriented personal agendas on modern morality when they’re on
the “right side” of history regarding the anti-religion, gender and
sexuality issues.

They don’t worry about those issues because they’re
deemed important, especially when they’re ham-handedly jammed into the
framework of the story. They must deem it a public service, especially
if there is a corresponding Social Justice outcry. It’s for the “greater
good” and the critics are just bigots anyways. Isn’t that what they
always say? That anyone else who doesn’t think the way they do is just a
bigot and a phobic of some kind. What a boorish way to dismiss a
counter-viewpoint. Thinking like that made the concentration camps
possible. So, maybe they were so upset by what I’d written they forgot
to be professional? They merely demanded that I rewrite that chapter not
because it was poorly written, or, not supportive of the arc of the
novel. No, they demanded it be struck from the record because they hate
the idea I’d advanced. They demanded it be deleted without discussion.
They felt it was for… the “greater good.” That is censorship, and a
violation of everyone’s right to free speech. They demanded it be so or
else… I wouldn’t be published.

That’s how they threatened a writer with a
signed contract.

I refused.
I am a writer.
No. One. Will Ever. Bully. Me.
Ever.

I’ve had four – FOUR – book contracts either paid off or canceled myself because a gatekeeper inside the publishing house disliked the ideological content of a book that the editor had wanted to sign. In fairness, this hasn’t always been an SJW gatekeeper, as Media Whores was killed by a conservative publishing house after they learned that I was not solely targeting the left-wing media whores, but had written a chapter on Bill O’Reilly.

But in three out of the four cases, it was an SJW playing thought police. Publishing, as an industry, has largely been converged, which is why so much of it is so unreadable these days. They are genuinely less interested in selling books and making money than advancing their social justice cause.