The fight over Hugo awards

[niam2023]

Vox Day, you really deserve to be impaled through your fingers and strewn up from a tree.

What SP and RP did is classless and vulgar.

Coincidentally, I've noticed the same thing Ironchew noticed - as far as ethics and gates are concerned, UP will side with the side that shrieks the loudest about the meaningless facade called "ethics".

[Second Coming of Madman]

Vox Dei actually writes?

[Meshakhad]

Yeah, he's written several sci-fi novels.

[niam2023]

Yes. Though it can barely be called writing. He collected internet witticisms and one liners and called it a book.

He was expelled from a scifi group for calling someone a half-savage or something. Good to know time hasn't made him more mature about these scifi literary groups.

^ None of them very good, I subjected myself to them quite a while ago.

[ironbite]

Vox Day, you really deserve to be impaled through your fingers and strewn up from a tree.

What SP and RP did is classless and vulgar.

Coincidentally, I've noticed the same thing Ironchew noticed - as far as ethics and gates are concerned, UP will side with the side that shrieks the loudest about the meaningless facade called "ethics".

....holy shit you're right!

[Ultimate Paragon]

Vox Day, you really deserve to be impaled through your fingers and strewn up from a tree.

What SP and RP did is classless and vulgar.

Coincidentally, I've noticed the same thing Ironchew noticed - as far as ethics and gates are concerned, UP will side with the side that shrieks the loudest about the meaningless facade called "ethics".

You mean like how Global Warming is a façade communists hide behind?

And just for the record, I sympathize with Sad Puppies, but I have some criticisms of my own.

[dpareja]

Vox Day, you really deserve to be impaled through your fingers and strewn up from a tree.

What SP and RP did is classless and vulgar.

Coincidentally, I've noticed the same thing Ironchew noticed - as far as ethics and gates are concerned, UP will side with the side that shrieks the loudest about the meaningless facade called "ethics".

....holy shit you're right!

There's a term that describes people like that, but I'd probably be, at least, told to take it to F&B if I used it.

[Sigmaleph]

Any cause is bound to attract more than one movement.  Just look at animal rights.  You have admirable organizations like the ASPCA, and you have shitheads like PETA.  But they have the same ideological motivation, and there's an overlap in their positions.  And with Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies, you'd expect the overlap to be greater because the focus is narrower.

In this metaphor, who is the ASPCA and who is PETA?

From what I gather, most of the folks involved in Sad Puppies don't want to rig the awards in their favor, but to combat the politicization of the Hugo Awards.

Which they did by... politicising the Hugo Awards. Brilliant.

If next year the leftists get the bright idea of gaming the system exactly the same way the puppies did, then the awards will become basically a political popularity contest. One the right-wing will probably lose, even. And while I'm sure they'll be happy to blame John Scalzi for it, the fact of the matter is it'd be their fault. They called up that which they cannot put down.*

However, I disagree with their tactics.  A more ethical response than what Sad Puppies did would simply be to try and recruit as many extra voters from everywhere you can.  That would dilute any established unnatural voting.

But the reason the Hugos are what they are is because the voter distribution is drawn from a certain pool (worldcon attendees). The puppies already fucked with that, by starting a campaign to recruit voters from their political allies. There's no guarantee that recruiting more people from everywhere you can means you're recruiting people with the same distribution of opinions on SF&F. Indeed, you're probably not.

If the Hugos are to be the Hugos, fucking up the voting pool even more is not a solution.


*no discussion of the right wing of SF&F is complete without a Lovecraft reference.

[niam2023]

My opinion, ban Vox Day and everyone affiliated with that piece of human rubbish.

[Sixth Monarchist]

Vox Day's already been kicked out of the SFWA. I know very little about Larry Correia & co., but they strike me as standard, if whiny, Republican types. VD, on the other hand, is an entirely different level of crazy. See, for example:

Ironically, in light of the strong correlation between female education and demographic decline, a purely empirical perspective on Malala Yousafzai, the poster girl for global female education, may indicate that the Taliban's attempt to silence her was perfectly rational and scientifically justifiable.

Oh wait, I forgot. John C. Wright - also stranger and loopier than a Penrose staircase.

[Ultimate Paragon]

Any cause is bound to attract more than one movement.  Just look at animal rights.  You have admirable organizations like the ASPCA, and you have shitheads like PETA.  But they have the same ideological motivation, and there's an overlap in their positions.  And with Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies, you'd expect the overlap to be greater because the focus is narrower.

In this metaphor, who is the ASPCA and who is PETA?

Sad Puppies are the former, whereas Rabid Puppies are the latter.

From what I gather, most of the folks involved in Sad Puppies don't want to rig the awards in their favor, but to combat the politicization of the Hugo Awards.

Which they did by... politicising the Hugo Awards. Brilliant.

If next year the leftists get the bright idea of gaming the system exactly the same way the puppies did, then the awards will become basically a political popularity contest. One the right-wing will probably lose, even. And while I'm sure they'll be happy to blame John Scalzi for it, the fact of the matter is it'd be their fault. They called up that which they cannot put down.*

Like I said, I don't agree with their tactics.  I'm afraid things might go into a downward spiral.  Already, their opponents are trying to get their nominees excluded from the awards altogether.

But the Hugo awards were already politicized.

However, I disagree with their tactics.  A more ethical response than what Sad Puppies did would simply be to try and recruit as many extra voters from everywhere you can.  That would dilute any established unnatural voting.

But the reason the Hugos are what they are is because the voter distribution is drawn from a certain pool (worldcon attendees). The puppies already fucked with that, by starting a campaign to recruit voters from their political allies. There's no guarantee that recruiting more people from everywhere you can means you're recruiting people with the same distribution of opinions on SF&F. Indeed, you're probably not.

If the Hugos are to be the Hugos, fucking up the voting pool even more is not a solution.


*no discussion of the right wing of SF&F is complete without a Lovecraft reference.

Okay then, what solutions would you suggest?  I'm all ears.

[Sigmaleph]

In this metaphor, who is the ASPCA and who is PETA?

Sad Puppies are the former, whereas Rabid Puppies are the latter.

But you have already stated that you dislike the Sad Puppies' tactics. What exactly makes them commendable?

Or are they just the lesser of two evils, in your view? If so, out of what merit other than "not being associated with Theodore Beale"?

Like I said, I don't agree with their tactics.  I'm afraid things might go into a downward spiral.  Already, their opponents are trying to get their nominees excluded from the awards altogether.

But the Hugo awards were already politicized.

In what sense and to what extent?

I mean, as far as I know the SF&F fandom skews left, or at least the part of it that attends Worldcon does. Given that we should expect right wingers like Correia et al will be unpopular to some extent (Correia says he has suffered harassment for his views. I have no reason to doubt this and I don't endorse it or condone it).

But in that sense, the Hugos are politicised in pretty much the same way as any human activity. I don't know that the there's any practical solution to that other than demographic shift, and even then it wouldn't be apolitical, it would just be politicised in a different way.

GRRM argues at length that the awards themselves are not unfairly shutting out right-wing writers. I'm not exactly sure if it bears out, but he would know better than me. If you have an argument on that, I'm happy to hear it.

Okay then, what solutions would you suggest?  I'm all ears.

I don't have one. It would be nice if the puppies went off to organise their own awards for that rewards whatever it is the want Sci-Fi to be and let the Hugos be the Hugos, but I don't think they'll do that on their own and I don't know how to get them to do it.

Like I said, the Puppies are calling up what they cannot put down. Right now the situation might be solved by unilateral action on their part, and that's not going to happen. If it goes much further, and other groups decide to start replicating their tactics, then a unilateral solution is impossible. Hurray for Nash equilibria.

Then again, it just might go away on its own when people lose interest, who knows. Politics are complicated.

[Ultimate Paragon]

Well, the results are in, and it's not pretty:

http://difficultrun.nathanielgivens.com/2015/08/24/lots-of-hugo-losers/



Congratulations, you just proved the puppies right.

[Askold]

Congratulations, you just proved the puppies right.

Uhh... No. People voted "None of the above" when all the candidates were puppies and they didn't like any of them. Besides, when you call a racist a racist and he claims that you are slandering him and therefore being just as bad as he is it is called false equivalency. That is what the Puppies are doing now. Their campaign backfired so now they are trying to make it look like the other side is just as bad (or even worse) while claiming that they themselves haven't done anything wrong.

[Ironchew]

Well, the results are in, and it's not pretty

Really? I thought sane fans made the best of the nominations given to them.

Congratulations, you just proved the puppies right.

UP, we sent you back to Vox and co. with your tail between your legs. Your pitiful movement had its 15 minutes of fame; it will never muster enough popularity to influence the Hugos again.

It's a lot like Gamergate that way, actually.