John C. Wright's Blog, page 28

One More

The Comics Alliance informs us that our motive was fear of progress. Science fiction guys, afraid of progress.

http://comicsalliance.com/hugo-awards-ballot-stuffing-sad-puppies/

Note the same approach and same pattern: accusations without evidence, recriminations, and a sly wink telling the undecided that all the Cool Kids are joining in the Two Minute Hate – you don’t want to be seen with Emmanuel Goldstein, DO YOU?

 Argumentum ad hominem ongoing ad nauseum.

For the record, no one at Comic Alliance contacted anyone in Sad Puppies for comment, clarification, or to double check the facts. No one at Comics Alliance actually passed their Journalism 101 class.

Do we all understand this process now? We abide by rules that the Morlocks routinely and shamelessly break, and then they accuse us of breaking rules. And of being Demons from the antimatter Nazi Planet of Transislamophobic Rape Culture who eat Third World babies with chickpeas and lemon butter. Because we are motivated by hate and fear and more hate.

The content of the accusation does not matter, just as long as the accusations are never-ending, strident, and too stupid to counter.

I believe our spokesmammal, Wendel the Manatee, has a sufficient command of eloquence to set to rest all such libels. What do you say, Wendel?

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MEEEEEEEEEwhOOOOO! HOOOOOOOOOOOOON!

Profound, yet sagacious, Wendel. We cherish your eloquent insight.

 

 

Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.

Entertainment Weekly Retracts the Libel, but Too Late

That esteemed publication has pulled their original post. In the eyes of the law, it does not matter: Libel attached at the moment of publication, albeit later retractions may have a bearing on the amount of damages.

I know that in certain cases, attempts to make the victim right cannot be used as evidence of admission of negligence, but I do not know if that applies in libel suits.

However, even if an immediate retraction limited the real dollar value of the damage to our reputations, in a case like the one here, where (A) the publication was made negligently or maliciously, and later admitted to be negligent, and (B) where the libelist (1) stated that the plaintiff (well, I am getting ahead of myself — no papers have been filed — let us call him the victim) was involved in a crime involving moral turpitude, or a felony; or (2) exposes a victim to ridicule; or (3) reflects adversely on the victim’s character, morality, integrity; or (4) impairs the victim’s ability to earn a living; or (5) suggests that the victim suffers from a physical or mental defect that would cause others to avoid him, then damages are presumed.

Three of those clearly are in evidence in this case. If we consider being a racist misogynist to be a physical or mental defect, four. If discrimination is a crime in the venue of the res, and a hate crime, then it clearly involves moral turpitude, and so we have at one go all five presumptive forms of libel at one go. Well done, gentlemen. Next time hire an editor and do your due diligence before you publish.

It has been many years since I practiced law, and this was never my field anyway, but I seem to recall from Torts 101 that a simple retraction is insufficient if the damages are presumptive. A law student who did not snooze in lecture would be able to inform you better than I.

As one commenter over at Vox Populi remarked aptly:

I feel like I’ve just read a retarded edition of Pravda that somehow slipped through a hole in the fabric of reality from the Harrison Bergeron universe.

For the record, Exhibit A:

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Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.

Entertainment Weekly Hates Puppies and Makes them Sad

Entertainment Weekly, a subsidiary of Time, Inc. unleashes an unwise torrent of libel, slant, misinformation, lies. Good grief.

http://www.ew.com/article/2015/04/06/hugo-award-nominations-fall-victim-misogynistic-and-racist-voting

Larry Correia, International Lord of Hate, says, It is possibly the most flat out wrong I’ve ever seen a news article in my life, and I’m including stuff about pyramid power and reptoids in there.

And our bold Spokesmammal, Wendel, says Hrroooooonnn!

Wise words, Wendel. Wise words.

The Reptoid Archon Z’zrlel Z’zwa of Egg-Cluster Zhwmn, Grandmaster of the Sixth Configuration, the Subchief of the Human Subcreature Vivisectionist Division from Alpha Draconis (Thuban) says, You naked ape dudes from earth are just freaks. I am at a loss for the communication drool we use instead of words! You are an embarrassment to the Orion Arm of the Galaxy! We are advancing the time table, activating our long buried tesseractoid powers at Ghiza Pyramid and Machu Picchu and will soon reduce you to meat animals, deflower your nubile she-creatures, and eat the brains of your younglings!

Gee, good work, Entertainment Weekly. Thanks to you, now we have reptoids armed with pyramid power to worry about! Good going, jerks.

The comments section is something to see. The factual distortions are mentioned immediately by friendly or neutral voices, and the Morlocks merely grunt and swear and repeat the same libels they have no doubt macro’d into their computer: racist, sexist, thisist, thatist, theotherist, blah, blah, blah, and yes, we all hate Emmanuel Goldstein.

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Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.

K Tempest Bradford on Sexual Congress and Salvific Grace

Miss K Tempest Bradford is an outspoken adversary of the Sad Puppies suggested slate of authors, and has posted about it on her Facebook page. I have not had the honor of reading any of her work, but I am given to understand she is a science fiction authoress.

Below I reproduce her words, except for uncouth expletives which I do not allow on my blog.

In this case, I have substituted the robustly earthly expression for carnal knowledge with the more delicate term ‘sexual congress.’ Naturally, as a romanticist, I support and applaud her earnest and urgent imperative asking her readers to enter holy matrimony and enjoy the erotic pleasures of the nuptials.

Also, as a devout Catholic, I applaud her desire to warn people of the dangers of eternal damnation, but at the risk of detracting from her spontaneity of expression, I will substitute the four-letter adjective referring the state of unending woe with the more theologically accurate term ‘devoid of the salvific grace of Christ, Our Lord.’

Also, as a man whose buttocks is large, flabby and mushroom-colored, I applaud her inclusive language addressing the Posterior-American community, but, since this is a family-friendly site, I will substitute her forthright Anglo-Saxaonism with the more effete and Continental term derriere.

The word intersectional is a term of art that can only be explained by that famed pathologist of those suffering from advanced stages of terminal Morlockery, our own Mr James May. I believe it is jargon for the alleged conspiracy of Euro-Christian Hetero-Males to do many bad things. I will leave it as-is, because while it is a swearword in her language, in my language, is it merely pseudo-intellectual jabberwocky.

Normally, I need not go to such lengths to quote someone, but such is the condition of modern language and modern manners.

All the words not in bold italics below are hers. The caps are hers.

Here’s a thing: I need people to stop responding to this Sad Puppies/Hugo thing with “well, if you want to change things, you should have voted.”

First: sexual congress you.

Second: Has your derriere been paying attention to the conversations in this community for the past 5, 10, 20, 30 years on this topic? because, if you haven’t, I invite you to shut your devoid of the salvific grace of Christ, Our Lord mouth.

…

You see, if you had been paying attention you’d know that lots of people do and did nominate. And in the past few years more and more people who care about diversity in SFF have been making an effort to join the WorldCon voting ranks.

THIS IS WHY SAD PUPPIES EXISTS. Not because some people just happened to decide, but because the mostly white mostly male contingent of whiny derriere-holes saw that there was a shift happening toward a more diverse Hugo slate and away from their ilk and decided to work against it. And bring in people fro outside of the community to help them.

If you don’t sexual congress-ing know this then you should keep your opinions in your head.

Third: If you can’t or don’t attend WorldCon, the only way to vote is to become a supporting member. That costs $50. Does everyone have $50 to spend on this? No, no they don’t. As I said, in the past few years there has been an upsurge in people willing to do so because they feel it’s important. But again, the mostly white mostly men who are involved in Sad Puppies and the mostly white, mostly men brought in from gamer gate have money to spare (this is often a result of said whiteness and maleness). For them $50 is no big deal. For others it is not.

So sexual congress-ing cut it out acting like “Oh, you can just vote”. It’s not that simple.

This is a class issue, a race issue, a gender issue. In other words, it’s intersectional. And I know some of you have a hard time with that concept. I don’t care. You’ve had plenty of time to figure it out. I’m real tired of your inability to understand these things…

* * *

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Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.

Larry Correia on Melancholy of Callow Canines

Mr Correia does an admirable job of summing up the current Hugo situation, vis a vis, th4e Sad Puppies suggested slate

http://monsterhunternation.com/2015/04/06/a-letter-to-the-smofs-moderates-and-fence-sitters-from-the-author-who-started-sad-puppies/

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Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.

I Love Daddy Warpig!

A gamer of my acquaintance, but one for whom I have love and respect, has recently been singled out because of his association with me — we appeared on a podcast together, and, horror of horrors, he complimented me — and is now subjected to the Alinskyite method of attack, which is, namely:

(1) to select a single visible target for a whole movement (in this case, Daddy Warpig is a stand in for the strawman version of Gamergate, that is, the evil misogynists hating haters of hate and not the real Gamergaters, persons annoyed at corruption and collusion in the gaming review field)

(2) to isolate that target, so that friends and associates avoid him

(3) never argue the facts; only pour on irrational and unanswerable accusations.

If you accuse a man of being a thief, he can embarrass you if he asks you what he has stolen, but if you accuse him of eating the Moon, hating all women (including his mother), contributing to an atmosphere of violence, and making you feel unsafe, there is no answer to this nonsense because it is nonsense

(4) human beings being what they are — fallen half-beast half-angel — the crowd will then avoid the pariah, and anyone who touches the pariah is himself a pariah. The link has only to be alleged. One touch of the smallest finger will do, and all in the crowd are expected to flee from the pariah, the leper, and woe to whoso flees the most slowly, because he too can be accused. Anyone can be accused. Accusation is the weapon. It is the only weapon.

What is the rational response to such unreason? What is the honorable response to such dishonor?

I hereby touch Daddy Warpig and freely take on his cooties.

I heap scorn upon such childish, dishonorable, craven, unprofessional and uncouth villains, caitiffs, scolds, base cowards, wretches, warlocks, morlocks, rabbits and wargs who dare to slander this man.

I stand with him and against you. I hurl down my gauntlet at thee.

Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.

From a Colleague

Mr Charles Stross holds forth on the recent controversy concerning the Hugo nominations:

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2015/04/the-biggest-little-sf-publishe.html

The indented remarks are his, and the italics is his quote of Castalia House’s public statement of purpose:

Castalia House was (per wikipedia) founded by Theodore Beale (aka Vox Day) in early 2014 in Kouvola, Finland. As their website explains:

Castalia House is a Finland-based publisher that has a great appreciation for the golden age of science fiction and fantasy literature. The books that we publish honor the traditions and intellectual authenticity exemplified by writers such as J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Robert E. Howard, G.K. Chesterton, and Hermann Hesse. We are consciously providing an alternative to readers who increasingly feel alienated from the nihilistic, dogmatic science fiction and fantasy being published today. We seek nothing less than a Campbellian revolution in genre literature.

Total culture wars, very gamergate, much fail, wow. But the screaming question I feel the need to ask, is: why Finland? Could there be a connection between the white supremacist Perussuomalaiset (Finns Party), the overtly racist Sweden Democrats, the Dark Enlightenment/neoreactionary movement, and Vox Day’s peculiarly toxic sect of Christian Dominionist theology?

Later, in the comments, Mr Stross remarks:

The shout-out to “Campbellian” in the Castalia House bumph is telling — John W. Campbell was an obnoxious racist (consider that Heinlein wrote “Fifth Column” to an outline drafted by Campbell and toned down the racist/eliminationist invective against the Yellow Peril!), as well as a crank and a reactionary who thought teh wimmins’ place was in the kitchen. Says it all, really.

And

Jim Butcher certainly deserves to be on the Hugo shortlist.

Agreed.

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Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.

Breitbart on Sad Puppies

Allum Bokhari of Breitbart London reports and comments on the results of today’s Hugo nominations. Read the whole thing here.

It’s worth noting that the Sad Puppies were not the first group to propose a slate of suggested nominations. The trend was started by former president of the Science Fiction Writers Guild of America, John Scalzi, who hosted an annual “award pimpage” post on his blog. British writer Charles Stross followed his example. But there was little semblance of a backlash to either Stross or Scalzi, who were both deeply embedded in the existing clique.

And yet, following today’s news, the same people who fawned over Scalzi erupted in outrage, apparently because some of the Sad and Rabid Puppies organisers and authors are identified as libertarians — or even, shock horror, conservatives.

Earlier today, I tried to inform a Guardian contributor about Scalzi’s record of nomination slates. I noticed he was preparing a story on the Hugo Awards, and, as a fellow journalist, I thought I’d provide him with some relevant information. His response was to block me.

Blocked the truth, eh? No further comment by me is needed.

Tor Books claimed the Locus Award for best publisher for 26 years in a row, and has won 38 of 156 Hugo nominations in the last 30 years. In 2014, when Tor.com was founded, it claimed 50 percent of short story nominations at the Hugos, 40 percent of novella nominations, and 20 percent of the novelette nominations.

Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.

Hugo Finalists Announced

My sincere congratulations to the other nominees, and my humble thanks to all who honored my works with their votes.

The finalists are…

Best Novel

(1827 nominating ballots)

Ancillary Sword , Ann Leckie (Orbit US/Orbit UK)
The Dark Between the Stars , Kevin J. Anderson (Tor Books)
The Goblin Emperor , Katherine Addison (Sarah Monette) (Tor Books)
Lines of Departure , Marko Kloos (47North)
Skin Game , Jim Butcher (Roc Books)

NOTE: Larry Correia declined his nomination for MONSTER HUNTER NEMESIS

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Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.

Preview of SOMEWHITHER

Here is the Cover Art. One advantage of Indie publishing, is that the book cover can actually reflect what the author thinks is in the book.

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Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.