Category Archives: Media Criticism

Business, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

Reflections On Sad Puppies

36 Comments

Brad Torgersen:

…clearly, the people who instigated today’s parade of falsehoods at Entertainment Weekly were not eager for reconciliation. This was straight-up character assassination. A slash-and-burn hit job. Aided and abetted by media devices which are programmed to seek and spread controversy, for the sake of clicks, likes, and money.

Is Sad Puppies 3 a terrible thing? It is if you ask the opponents of same.

Is Sad Puppies 3 hateful to women or ethnic minorities?

Only if you believe Sad Puppies 3 participants like Annie Bellet or Rajnar Vajra don’t count.

I think perhaps what some people (unused to the insider baseball of SF/F) might not be clear about, is that Sad Puppies 3 is not a thing invented to keep anyone off the Hugo ballot for demographic reasons. It was invented to (originally) poke fun at some tired predictabilities in the selection process, as well as scuttle the notion that the award was actually all about quality, when it’s more or less been a popularity and quasi-politicized contest the whole time. Along the way we fairly skewered the concept of literary affirmative action — that works and authors should be judged on the basis of author or character demographics and box-checking, not the audience’s enjoyment of the prose — so perhaps that’s where opponents of SP3 thought they found a toe-hold? And used it as best as they could to rope in a lot of outside media, in a clownish attempt to punish and discredit both Larry and myself.

Obviously, anyone who tries to make a coherent case for me being racist or sexist . . . has over 21 years of contradictory evidence to overcome. You cannot have lived my life, and be a racist or a sexist. It is an ontological impossibility. I’ve seen too much of the elephant, to borrow a phrase. Plus, my wife probably would have thrown me out on my butt a long time ago — she being the far more astute judge of character, than either a low-rent tabloid blogger or a pernicious and vindictive SF/F personality.

And from Robert Tracinski: How to fight back in the culture war:

The other thing we’ve come to expect from the Social Justice Warriors is a bitter, dismissive hatred for the fans of their own field, who stubbornly refuse to be reformed by their betters. A rant from “progressive” writer Philip Sandifer, echoing last year’s proclamation that “Gamers Are Dead,” declared “The Day Fandom Ended.”

Sandifer argued for “the moral duty of progressive voices to form a blocking majority, and to loudly admit that fandom as it stands is broken, and that any work proclaimed to be the best of the year by a fandom this broken is demeaned by the association.” So he advocates that “progressives” should buy their way into the final ballot and vote for “No Award Given” in every category. “The 2015 Hugos should simply be blank.”

In other news, he’s going to take his ball and go home.

Not to be outdone, “Jeopardy Jerk“ Arthur Chu decided to live down to his epithet by denouncing “democracy” as such. It’s like Stalin said: the problem with elections is that you never know ahead of time who’s going to win.

Inherent in leftism is the notion that we all must be guided by a small elite, a revolutionary vanguard, and that if we resist our indoctrination, it is necessary to dissolve the people and elect another.
To be sure, it is possible some of the Sad Puppies nominees won because of their right-leaning politics rather than their quality. And it also appears that the proprietor of the competing slate, Rabid Puppies, has said a few genuinely objectionable things. But the science-fiction establishment might want to take a moment to ask how they have so alienated their core audience as to provoke this kind of mass protest vote. Than again, forget I said that. “Progressives” never ask that question. Inherent in leftism is the notion that we all must be guided by a small elite, a revolutionary vanguard, and that if we resist our indoctrination, it is necessary to dissolve the people and elect another.

I’d like to be a conscientious objector, but they won’t let me.

[Late-morning update]

It’s almost like they were all reading off the same script.

[Thursday-morning update]

The Social Justice Warriors aren’t so tough when even “sad puppies” can beat them.

[Bumped]

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Technology and Society

The American Physical Society

4 Comments

…beclowns itself again on climate:

Well, their paragraph on Climate Science is a rather astonishing take on the APS Workshop. Their paragraph on Climate Change seems to come from the Guardian. Their statement on Climate Action reiterates their rather crazy statement in 2007

Apart from the issue that no one on the POPA seems to understand any of these issues beyond a superficial level (after Koonin and Rosner departed from the POPA), and that their statements are naive and unprofessional, here is my real problem with this. This is an egregious misuse of the expertise of the APS. Their alleged understanding of issues like spectroscopy and fluid dynamics are not of any direct relevance to the issues they write about in this statement. The statement is an embarrassment to the APS.

Either reform is required, or an alternate organization.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

Take A Bow, Media!

9 Comments

You’re crushing it:

Yes, it was definitely the rightwing outlets calling for justice for Trayvon. National Review was first on the ground in Missouri, chanting “hands up, don’t shoot” with the protesters. Doesn’t she realize that by pointing to these examples, she’s disproving her point? That they were almost exactly like Jackie’s case: prettied up falsehoods designed to make the case for larger structural reforms? “Oh, sure, Trayvon had some run-ins with the law and clearly attacked Zimmerman, but this is about larger problems.” “Oh, sure, Mike Brown had literally just committed a strong arm robbery and was attacking a cop rather than surrendering to him, but this is about larger problems.” “Oh, sure, Jackie is a liar and a fraud, but this is about larger problems.” The right didn’t invent these people. The right didn’t bring them to light. I bet she also thinks it was also the right that tried to turn Deamonte Driver into a cause célèbre.

It’s almost like the narrative must take precedent over the truth, or something.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Yup, “Left sticks to narratives, evidence be damned.”

[Update a while later]

Rolling Stone can’t even apologize right.

Time to start accusing the media of “rollingstoning” every time they pull something like this.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

The Left’s New Rules

19 Comments

They may come to regret them:

The revolt has begun, peacefully. In 2010, and again in 2014, the Silent Majority returned and sent an unmistakable message to the liberal elite. When Bill Clinton got that message in 1994, he recognized that opposition and worked with it. But under Obama, the liberal elite acts to ignore and delegitimize the opposition. 2014 was not a tantrum; it was a warning, and the liberals are betting that they can bluff and bluster their way through it.

When you block all normal means of dissent, whether by ignoring the political will of you opponents or using the media to mock and abuse them, you build up the pressure. In 30+ years as an active conservative, I’ve never heard people so angry, so frustrated, so fed up. These emotions are supposed to be dissipated by normal political processes. But liberals are bottling them up. And they will blow. It’s only a matter of how.

Liberals need to understand the reality that rarely penetrates their bubble. Non-liberal Americans (it’s more than just conservatives who are under the liberal establishment’s heel) are the majority of this country. They hold power in many states and regions in unprecedented majorities. And these attacks focus on what they hold dearest – their religion, their families and their freedom.

What is the end game, liberals? Do you expect these people you despise to just take it? Do you think they’ll just shrug their shoulders and say, “Well, I guess we better comply?” Do you even know any real Americans? Do you think you’ll somehow be able to force them into obedience – for what is government power but force – after someone finally says “Enough?”

I think they do think that. At its heart, this is why they want to disarm us, and why we will continue to resist.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Technology and Society

An Epistemological Question

3 Comments

Ron Bailey wonders what it would take to convince you that AGW was occurring.

Roy Spencer responds.

I agree that Ron is a smart guy, but I do think there’s some of this going on:

I hate to impute motives, but I really have to wonder if he is succumbing to peer pressure, since believing anything that smacks of denial-ism is really frowned upon in the intellectual circles I’m sure Ron is part of.

I think it’s compounded by the fact that it’s hard enough to change your mind once. It would be kind of embarrassing to revert back to skepticism. The key point, of course, is that Ron doesn’t necessarily believe that the problem demands any particular policy solution.