I’m not easily offended. Hey, I’d hardly call myself Monkey and mock my own antics if I had a deep and enduring intellect… er I mean sense of self importance. I do realize that this has always been one of my drawbacks in literary society and I ought to buy a stock of carrots to place in that famous place, Slice, and take umbrage (the river crossing just around the corner from Slice) by force majeure and with elephants, and I could be the new Harlan. But alas, I lack ambition.
But I must admit to getting irritated enough by a poster last week to write a reply and sin-bin it. The writer told me that they were proud to be called a Social Justice Warrior.
This is a writing site (yes, we have readers who are curious as to what writers do and think. That’s great, and they’re welcome.) But it is essentially a constructive site. There are hundreds of posts about techniques, and discussions of how best to prosper in our industry, from promotion, to how to use keywords… We have a long, provable record of being very supportive of any writers that wish to get help. And there is really no hierarchy, and ‘it’s my pie, you can’t have any’. We’re also fairly well known for wishing those who think our ideas stupid the best of British luck and off you go and do your own thing. We don’t permit ad hominem attacks in our comments and I at least try and keep it PG 13 (which when you consider my background is an achievement.) Admittedly, as people who love books, support writers… we do get snarky in some posts with people and groups who are trashing a genre we love. But that’s here. We do not call for boycotts, or for individuals to hounded, persecuted and harassed. We regard organizing anonymous lynch mobs and pile-ons for the enforcement of our ‘group-think’ as utter anathema. Hell, you’d have FIND our group-think. Nor – as quite a few of those who run their careers off the coat-tails of ‘fashionable’ causes do — do we act as enablers for those.
Actually, if there is one feature about the MGC herd of cats that is common, it would be that we might dislike you, and disapprove of everything you believe in, but we’ll support your being able to publish your book. The market (if it is left to do so) will sort it out. Okay, so we’d like the market — AKA readers — to be allowed to do so. That, we are frequently told, is supremely evil.
You might say for our society – fellow writers, we seek as fair a go as possible, equality of opportunity (not of course outcome. Equal outcomes are neither fair nor just). And as completely outweighed and under-armed individuals against the vast publishing traditional establishment – the darlings who want you to know your place and believe in hierarchy – as long as they’re the top of it… we take on this hell with a fire-bucket. We’re regularly subjected to overt and closet harassment, and yes, there have been a few attempts to organize lynch mobs (which failed rather miserably) and regular sabotage of everything from distribution to reviews. Shrug. We fight on. If you were being strictly accurate about the meaning of words… we’re a lot closer to being brave warriors fighting for our society to be just…
Than this. Yes, they’re up in arms because they finally figured that one of their leading SJW (Nominated for Hugo? Much better than Larry, naturally. I mean he just taught hundreds of victims how to defend themselves. She abused victims and was thus adored by the SJW. Much more deserving./sarc off) was actually also attacking them. Now, the little graphs are pure GIGO, of course (I can explain, but trust me. Math-stats is something you can trust me on). We’ve had the same sock-puppet here. Winterfox IIRC. So, I suspect, have many others… but we, and anyone else not among the chosen ones, the darlings of the Traditional Establishment, are not going to rush off and tell the enablers and encouragers of this conduct that we don’t like it. We just deal with it and move on, because it happens to us all the time. It’d be like MZB’s daughter complaining to her mother that her father was molesting her.
‘Requires Hate’ is still the role model for SJW conduct. And there are still people in SJW circles making excuses and allowances… Her fault was not her destructive, vicious harassment and sock-puppet anonymous lynch mobbing of defenseless writers, or trying to enforce a grieviance hierarchy of entitlement. It was trying to manipulate her (and her camp-followers) own way up the hierarchy (hence the pie charts), because, hey, such vile behavior is perfectly justifiable if it serves the interests of those who top the ‘victim bingo’ hierarchy – even if the target of the abuse is the kindest, most generous and gentlest of folk (look at race fail, or the recent Uncle Timmy saga) who did nothing more than inadvertently make the slightest non-PC slip. That’s very desirable and praiseworthy SJW conduct, as long as they’re not receiving.
This little quote from Mixon’s post illustrates their modus operandi:
“For some of her targets, she has mounted whisper campaigns, reaching out through her network of followers—prominent among whom is Alex Dally MacFarlane—to con committees, reviewers, and even publishers, pressuring them not to publish or review books she does not approve of, asking them to disinvite or limit the participation of professionals at convention events such as panels and readings.”
And then there are the threats of mutilation, the abusive language. All safely anonymous, in secret, all in collusion, all in… a good cause? Destroying lives and careers according to their self-declared ‘righteousness’ –which, just per chance, was for their benefit.
Who could be proud to be one of those? The least of the Mad Genius crew – me — has still done far more that is constructive for writing, sf and indeed their fellow men in need, than any of them. They’ve broken and looted and parasitized…
We build.
Talking of building, I have a new MG piece available. It’s somewhat autobiographical, but should be fun for boys 8-13 to read, at a whole 99 cents. The pictures are links.
And Joy is now up to 88 pre-orders. Thank you all who have pre-ordered.
Mad Genius Club 
105 responses to “We build”
People are often proud of the damnedest things.
Too right. I am reminded about the piece in Lord of Light (I paraphrase, too lazy to get up and get it) There was once a scientist who studied a terrible disfiguring disease looking for a cure. Then he caught it. Looking in the mirror he said ‘but on me it looks good.’
I’m not sure I can wrap my head around this. For years this person has been posting vicious and hateful attacks, stalking other posters, and putting together campaigns to ruin people’s lives and careers, and that was good because it was all directed at bad people.
Now, it turns out that Benjanun/ Requires Hate/Winterfox/et al may have been motivated by a desire to advance her own writing career and it’s suddenly a scandal?
It’s okay to do horrible things as long as you don’t benefit from them personally, is that the message?
It would seem to me, yes. Myself, I am taking a kind of grim satisfaction in the spectacle of people who thought such tactics were perfectly OK when used on non-SJW writers, but getting suddenly get all butt-hurt when they realize those tactics are being used against themselves.
Anything done for the Cause is OK, even if officially regrettable after the Cause triumphs. But personal benefit is anathema, because the Cause should be all, and you have sullied the beauty of the victims needed by the Cause. (Which, as I read it, sounds like the verdict at a trial in the USSR.)
Like with the outrages that motivate those behind #GamerGate.
It is one thing to say that you will use any means to change society. If you do it, if you ‘kill the opponent in the next boxing match’ to spread previously fringe opinions, people will learn other lessons also. If you recruit people to help in such an effort, some will be ideologically sound, and some will be the sort who just want an excuse.
Of course they will recruit people who can pass, but are another flavor of evil instead. Of course people will learn to use the underhanded methods in daily life, some without any need for an ideological excuse.
The weed of crime bears bitter fruit.
Many of them have been screaming about “The Man” and “old white people” for decades, but apparently haven’t realized that they themselves are now the “old white people” who are
“The Man”.
It’s like they’re still college freshmen inside their heads.
And being honest enough to recognize that they’ve been judging off of target?
If she were a white, straight man, she’d already be joining the Banished One in exile.
The hypocrisy is actually thicker than the cow-poo in yard that’s had twenty thousand cows through it. She has to have been a couple of orders of magnitude more abusive – and her attacks are not ‘responses’.
Yeah, when I read about her freely using the threat of throwing acid into people’s faces… and her getting away with that …
I was not surprised in the least. I mean, these are the same type of people who are trying to downplay Lena Dunham’s description of sexual abuse to her toddler sister. When they refuse to be intolerant of what SHOULD be intolerable evil, all that’s left is ‘I wonder what new horrors are acceptable to them?”
No, you have it wrong. It’s Okay to do horrible things and benefit from them so long as you don’t tramp on the toes of the higher ups in the hierarchy. You can be a loyal spear carrier, and disicpline the less than utterly idiotlogically pure, but thou shalt not step over certain lines to advance yourself beyond them.
[…] do recommend everyone go take a look at Dave Freer’s post at Mad Genius Club. Dave, despite what he thinks/says, is one of the two “nice” ones there. There other is […]
The Jacobins are always shocked when the tumbrels arrive at their own doorstep. And they always do.
Ms Mixon: welcome to the world you made.
Bingo. That there.
Those calling for bloody revolution are ALWAYS the first against the wall when the Revolution actually comes.
That’s because anyone who would “turn against their own, can’t be trusted.” (Old Communist, saying.)
Alex Dally MacFarlane, the post-binary woman, was one of Requires Hate’s followers? That explains a great deal.
Actually, as this lovely person was a set of sock-puppets, including it seems likely the supposed Thai Lesbian that got to play three victim cards we’re not too sure who followed who.
Am I a bad person for laughing?
The SJW’s made this bed they can lie in it.
Yes, it doesn’t surprise me that Alex was involved, speculation in the comments suggests that she could even be the colpret.
We’re thinking of running a betting pool as to which of the darlings it turns out to be. I figure they must be idle rich (or generously supported)- you can’t have the time to do this level of activity if you’re gainfully employed (this is probably true of most her/his acolytes too. I could never find the time, because I have to work), reasonably intelligent, reasonably well-educated, familiar/part of the homosexual scene, and familiar enough with Asia to wing it convincingly if he/she isn’t from there. Hardly a poor struggling oppressed victim, which I think you’d find true of her circles, although most of them are a bit soft in the head and probably need psychological help.
But don’t worry: some of the SJWs did a “RequiresLove” hashtag a few days ago and everything is okay now. (eyeroll)
I would hate to live in a world where hatred and backstabbing was the rule. But this is the direction the SJWs and the Progressives are leading us. Back behind the Iron Curtain of PC, where you must live as if everyone around you is an informer. Where you dare not talk seriously to your own children, because every word your children say is analyzed to see if it can be used against you.
It reminds me of a rather bizarre occurrence in Cub Scouts. Another couple – they were fun to talk with about SF and such, and history and the like. But we never, ever talked politics. After about 4-5 months (!) I hesitantly made a remark about the upcoming 2008 elections.. and I found out they were very conservative. They didn’t want to bring up politics because ‘You seemed like such nice people, we figured you were conservative, but didn’t want to drive you away if you weren’t.”
Which says a heck of a lot about the vaunted ‘tolerance’ of the Progressives…
We’re had the same experience here, with meeting and getting to know people … but being hesitant about discussing matters political. We’ve begun to wonder if we shouldn’t establish a secret handshake, or maybe an exchange of code words…
I try to explain this to my relatives who very earnestly assure me that “all” of my generation thinks this or that– it’s hard to do because several of them have children (…in their late 30s or older….) who are the reason that you don’t want to bring up politics, because once they find out you’re conservative you’ll either be exiled or constantly attacked. With horrible, ignorant caricatures. That never get updated even after you explain stuff…..
Indeed. Because it will be. And if they can’t find anything, they’ll just make shit up – as usual.
Reread THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS, and note the way Hell works therein. Lewis says he modeled it on really nasty bureaucracies and corporations, where everyone is polite to each other to their face, and backstabbing when they can get away with it.
SJW-land sounds just like his Hell.
I skimmed those comments, and all I could think was “what a small, fevered world.”
They aren’t mentally equipped to handle the idea that one of their own has done something wrong. All their usual clichés don’t applied.
I ordered “Joy” in paper and have received it! I’m planning to give it to my “conservative mother” for Christmas after I read it first. Life is sort of crazy so I’m only half-way through. I’ll be sure to put a review up!
ooh! first review!
I just posted the review on Amazon. (No, don’t look.) I said nice things and gave the book 4 stars. It was a great book and my Mom will like it. 🙂
Strangely enough: I’ve got reason to be grateful to RH.
I was briefly aware of her a few years ago, looking for reviews of a book I’d recently read and loved. By strange chance, the book and author had landed on RH’s list of targets. Seeing the novel blatantly misrepresented, the author unfairly attacked, everyone who attempted to correct her misapprehensions (often using the gentlest of language) likewise attacked, and so many fans and writers not only falling for it but joining in on said attacks and uncharitable speculation of a work they hadn’t read and a man they didn’t know made me realize how political correctness could be exploited.
Up till then, I was worried that my WIP would be inadvertently offensive. RH taught me that it is possible to twist ANYTHING into proof of ill will on the author’s part, so I resolved to write what I wished and I never looked back.
I also learned to take reviews with a grain of salt and not judge a work unless I’ve read it myself.
But I never knew RH had such a sizable network and so many aliases. From reading the post it seems too many didn’t take the same lesson I did.
A final note: I confess to a raised eyebrow when looking over RH’s targets. I recognized the name of one woman who had joined in on an earlier attack, apparently to find herself a target later.
Ah well, must get back to my day job, then see about some progress on my current WIP.
“Up till then, I was worried that my WIP would be inadvertently offensive.”
And in normal times this would be considered good manners.
Bob, there’s ab axiom in the business world. Loosely paraphrased is goes this way. “You *can’t* _not offend_ everyone.” I got into Newsgroups back in 1996 (or thereabouts), and learned it there. I saw it when I got involved with Business email lists, actually stated there. The _act_ of trying to be inoffensive, *will* offend someone; Therefore, just be honest.
Um. I wouldn’t write off the ‘target’ from the list of possible owners of the sock-puppet, unless the target was comprehensively destroyed. A bit of pretense does not seem past her/him/it.
Stalin got Kamenev, Zhinoviev, and Bukharin to help him attack Trotsky, then Bukharin to attack Kamenev and Zhinoviev, then he took out Bukharin …
Apparently, being a leftist brain damages you, and you can’t see what’s coming, and obvious to everyone else.
Some of the comments by people who had been subject to the full treatment just made me want to cry. I didn’t think it was funny because the guilty parties and enablers aren’t the ones who are hurt. Yes, we can scoff at Scalzi when he makes a rational counter-argument and is made, ultimately, to retract and abase himself and agree in public and start proselytizing in public that no… you really can’t trust your own brain and if something seems wrong to you or you feel like defending yourself it is simply proof that you’re guilty.
But there were people who reported rather severe PTSD type reactions to even sitting down at a keyboard to write because they were so terrified of offending… again. Because *rationally* they’d done nothing wrong the first time, but they were forced to an irrational acceptance of their guilt. So now they’ve “accepted their privilege” and “checked it” and confessed and repented (they could come to the Dark Side and be welcomed, but they don’t know that, and have been taught that the Dark Side is evil, and that’s why shunning is so very evil within closed communities… being exiled is a horrific punishment) but since they had NO IDEA how they could have done something wrong in the first place, they also have no idea how to avoid it the next time.
Imagine doing this to a child.
The kid is walking through a room doing nothing much and suddenly POW… and then you tell the kid… well that was YOUR fault. You screwed up. You stepped on that spot on the floor.
So the kid looks at the spot and it looks like every other spot. But the kid is told that, no, the fact that she can’t even SEE the spot is what the problem is. You can’t SEE the spot… that’s why it is YOUR fault. Also, a good child will try to learn. You’re a good child, aren’t you?
So the kid says, yes… it was my fault. I could not SEE the spot. Not seeing the spot makes this my fault.
Afterward, it’s still impossible to see the spots, and walking across the room becomes fraught with danger. Sitting down at the keyboard gives this very “good” person the shakes and panic attacks… where are the spots? She still can’t see the spots but she MUST agree and believe that those spots exist.
I have a LOT of sympathy for those who were hurt, just like I have sympathy for any abused person.
Yeah, I can’t laugh at someone being abused, either. Even if they themselves had done and said a lot of nasty stuff (and yes, some of those folks had). I might want a “mean girl” (or a bully boy) to learn her lesson, but I certainly don’t want her to be afraid to live.
OTOH, it was pretty clear from the posts and the blogowner comments that many participants had lost all sense of a normal way to express oneself and one’s honest feelings. Rational complaints against the evildoer and factual definitions of what she had done were taken as making the rest of the discussion “feel unsafe.” They cut _themselves_ off from saying what needs to be said. They can’t speak the truth or allow anyone else to call a spade a spade. Truth distortion has become a sort of mental speech impediment.
A couple of people respectfully, mildly, extremely *nicely* mentioned that the reason that this could continue was because that *type* of behavior was condoned. As far as I could see the comments were allowed to remain, but they were gently nudged to not make the conversation about that. It ought to be a place where those who were hurt could express their stories.
*sigh*
Honest? I think that it would help those people to hear the message… “The things we insist upon and allowed made you vulnerable and we’re *sorry*.”
I AM glad that Mixon has stepped forward and done this.
Even so, I imagine that it will be a long time before it would work to have one of Requires Hate’s right-wing targets show up and say… this person *tried* this on me, but I solved the problem by rejecting the community that supports that sort of thinking and behavior.
I started reading, feeling sorry for the people who had their love of books and reading and talking about them destroyed because of this person.
Then I saw them talking about how this would have been okay if they targeted the SJW Acceptable Targets.
And that’s when they lost my sympathy. Because I’m on the list of acceptable targets, and they were perfectly okay with people like Clamps unleashing their vitriol, stalking, misogynisic, racist hate and cyber-activism, on someone like me because I do not toe their line. They’re STILL okay with that, because badthink is intolerable.
For the most part.
Some of the people there are starting to wake up to how unacceptable that behavior is. And I look at those people with a shake of my head in some sympathy, because they’re going to find out the hard way that good-intentioned, well meaning protests against the treatment of the opponent will result in their being the targets of the same treatment they are arguing against now. And it’ll be bad because they’re ‘traitors to the cause.’
And sadly, worse, they won’t see the forest for the trees until they’ve been chewed up and spat out.
“Because *rationally* they’d done nothing wrong the first time, but they were forced to an irrational acceptance of their guilt.”
Kafkatrap. Read ESR excellent essay on the subject here.http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=2122
And in general I am not laughing at the victims either – with the exceptiion of the ones who did the same before he/she did, fuelled and supported… and then found themselves the target. It’s still not funny, but a few of them were getting what they handed out.
On the topic at hand: The behavior angers me (always has) and I’ll likely not say nice things, so I’ll leave it aside for the moment.
On the topic of the new book: I’m torn between “Dammit, man! Quit writing books, I’ve too many to read as it is!” and “Dammit, man! Write more books! What if I run out!”
So I bought that one. I try to keep up with good (in many senses) YA to make recommendations to friends. Plus, there’s a young lad in a messy room in my brain, and he likes ’em.
Well, this will be a very quick read. As long as the lad has nice dog in the messy room with him, he’ll be all right.
Right now when it comes to “Liberals”, IMO they deserve whatever they get.
I’ve unsubscribed from Truth vs Pravda (on Baen’s Bar) because a pro-SSM person thought it “acceptable” to state that I want to be able to legally kill gays and none of the other pro-SSM folks thought his statement was wrong.
I’ve reported him to the Bar Moderators but I see no reason (unfortunately) care if SJWs get what they dish out.
Okay, I’ve read portions of the link. I might go back and read further. Depends on how low my BP dips.
For the moment, I’ll plead guilty to skim until offended.
This little excerpt clarifies my attitude:
—Emphasis in the original.
Like others, I’m not going to seek joy in the suffering of others, particularly from vile treatment.
But, that little line up there? That’s why I don’t give the slightest damn about their community or the shambles it’s in. I detest bigotry, even dressed up as the elevation of the oppressed.
The glorified slug playing troll in question is reprehensible regardless of the class some self-imagined do-gooder wants to stuff the people she’s attacked in. She’s a psychological predator going after people. No modifiers necessary.
This is the game they wanted to play, don’t expect me or mine to play paladin when it burns their own.
All true, but on the bright side, a scroll through the comments quite a few people feel the same way. There’s talk that there should be no acceptable targets, and the need to take a good look at the community that’s allowed this to happen and someone to take advantage of them.
Eternal optimist that I am, perhaps this will be the goad that provokes them to put their house in order.
True believers? I doubt it.
But for the vast majority of the rest (the majority, period), those who are really trying to be good people by the lights they know/understand? I’ll join you in optimism.
The community is evil.
We can still mourn those who are wounded…..
With you there.
Yup. At one point a press reviewer had me so anxious that I was having anxiety attacks when I started opening the files containing the review and the revisions. Not anything like what this crew and individual have been inflicting, but I can sympathize with the ones who got hurt.
“The bulk of her targets—despite her progressively-slanted rhetoric—have been women, people of color, and other marginalized or vulnerable people.”
So like a typical predator, RH went after the people she perceived as weak and on the fringes of the group in order to shoulder her way up the group hierarchy. She simply exploited the group rules (inclusiveness, tolerance, check your privilege, watch your language) to their extreme.
SJWs have created an atmosphere of hysteria and paranoia that is very easy for a person lacking scruples to exploit. As we are learning right now.
Um. She/he targeted much more widely. And certainly stretched her ‘whispering’ campaigns further. Mixon’s sampling is garbage. What may be true is that she had more success with her fellow travelers. After all, calling me misogynist or racist (again for the nth time) is just going to make shrug, or point and laugh. Not so with her SJW friendies.
Yep. A sicko, no matter who she went after. ‘Vulnerable’ is not determined by sex or skin color. But they were all good with that being done. Cheered, supported, went along to help burn the witch. She got to choose victims and they all joined in common purpose. Not one of them can claim clean hands.
Reading the comments, what truly amazed me were the people who almost quit writing because of this woman. How can a writer be afraid to write simply because someone on the other side of the world wrote mean and nasty things about something else they wrote? Are they so fragile that they can’t deal with the possibility that someone, somewhere isn’t going to like their writing?
But those comments do explain a lot that I find so confusing about the SJWs. They truly expect their name calling and attacks to cause their targets to get scared and stop writing because that’s how SJWs react when it’s directed at them.
Gods above, no wonder their stories suck so badly.
How can a writer be afraid to write simply because someone on the other side of the world wrote mean and nasty things about something else they wrote? Are they so fragile that they can’t deal with the possibility that someone, somewhere isn’t going to like their writing?
They don’t see it that way– they see it as their writing shows them to be horrible people. Why else would someone be identifying horrible things in it?
It’s not a matter of “don’t like their writing.” It’s a matter of “Identify Horrible Wrong Thoughts in their writing.”
And the way to not be a horrible person is to not say or do the things that cause you to be identified as a Horrible Person.
Works fine, in their world view.
Because they don’t have a healthy sense of self-confidence. They don’t believe they are good people, in fact, they are pretty sure they are terrible people and they deserve to be punished when they show just how terrible they are.
I figure some of it is bad society and some is bad parenting. If you know you’re a basically a decent human being–not that you don’t have bad urges but that you’re not acting on them–then you’ve got the self-confidence to not believe it when some stranger says “You’re evil,” and, in fact, to make fun of it because you know that stranger is absurd.
Or you see it as an insult and thus the person making the insult is the “evil person”.
A lack of self-confidence but fear, too, of shunning, because if all of their friends have bought into this, and the definition of the Evil Ones are those that think that “privilege” is an irrational or even damaging way to talk about the world… what do you do or where do you *go* if you find yourself targeted?
Or they believe in themselves, and what terrified them was the effect of these accusations on their career–ostracism is frightening enough, but when you add in professional repercussions (“I’ve heard X is a homophobe. I’ll never accept one of his stories for publication”) it’s amazing any of RH’s lower-ranking targets ever spoke up again.
Yes, really. This.
“They truly expect their name calling and attacks to cause their targets to get scared and stop writing because that’s how SJWs react when it’s directed at them.”
yes. And it fails outside their little circle. But remember they also work at the level of attacking cons you may go to, book stores you may deal with, publishers, critics, reviewers. Nothing is too low. Ask Larry.
Not all people are equal in strength. Someone traumatized as a child for instance might shut up under attack as an adult, unable to process his greater resources now.
This doesn’t just happen in the writing world. I no longer speak to a sister in Seattle because of her attacks on me, most of them of exactly that variety. (E.g. as a RWNJ I was informed that the only reason I don’t want to pay more taxes is because I don’t want my money “to help poor brown people”.) My dad tried to make peace between us and I pointed out the crap she had pulled, including telling a friend of mine she didn’t personally know “I don’t know you so I’m inclined to impugn your intelligence”. I asked if he’d expect me to stay friends with a non-relative who did that. He said nothing, but has never tried to get me to contact her again.
I found out later that what she thought was the final straw was that in one online FB discussion I had said that I personally could never have an abortion, that I thought abortion should only be for the life of the mother, and that I didn’t think putting a crimp in your partying counted. This was read by all her good little leftie SJW type friends as meaning that I wanted women with ectopic pregnancies to DIE!!!!11!, and it made those “nice people” cry. In reality I suspect that most of those who “cried”, or who felt I was, as my sister put it, “mentally unstable” and “delusional”, had had abortions themselves, and really didn’t want to look closely at their reasons.
That little exchange also proved to me that these people don’t bother reading things. They skimmed enough to know that I didn’t tow the SJW party line, so they didn’t need to read further; I was obviously personally attacking them, and they were therefore justified in trying to destroy me or having my sister do it for them.
And “nice” isn’t the first word I’d choose to describe my friends; I hang around good people.
On “nice” vs “good”
Excuse the self-promotion, please, but I really distrust the idea of “nice.”
Nice is almost as hard to define as the notoriously subjective “fair,” but I’m starting to think it’s far more dangerous. ‘Nice’ is applied to a standard of behavior that does not raise objection among those who are around to be offended; ‘nice’ is a sort of vague version of ‘polite,’ centered around everyone feeling good.
With “everyone,” of course, being measured relative to who is throwing the biggest fit.
I’m off to the Remembrance Day service. To pay my respects and honor those who really were warriors. I’ll reply when I get back.
Salute to the fallen, and strength to those who still stand.
It’s just sad. They all come across as deeply unhappy people who want everyone else to be unhappy too. I’ll have no part of that.
This sort of thing is why I was so vehemently against SFWA expelling anyone for what amounted to badthink (once you stripped off all the PC modifiers). I knew very well that their target this time was quite capable of defending himself and turning the whole fracas into a disaster for SFWA.
That wasn’t the point. The point is that attacking someone because you don’t like something they say or believe is wrong. Even though some of the victims of this latest specimen have done as bad, the attacks are wrong. They would be wrong no matter who was attacked.
Something – alas – the self-styled “warriors” of social justice completely fail to see.
You know, if the Banished One could get thrown out of SFWA, why hasn’t Requires Hate? Is she a member? Are death threats not serious enough?
Are death threats not serious enough?
Depends on the target.
Which is exactly why the SJWs will insist that this isn’t true Social Justice. (well, they’re right– but their stuff isn’t, either, and I’m frankly a bit peeved about their theft of a perfectly good Catholic theological point to use as a hammer, but I digress. I’ll pause for you to be shocked.)
They go on the ends justifying the means. So threatening death on someone who has Bad Think is just fine, because it hurts a Bad Person.
And yes, this does mean that you can later decided that the one accused of Bad Think wasn’t really, and thus the death threats weren’t justifiable, or that the death threats were OK because the target has now been defined as having Bad Think.
See why I have sympathy for the folks who were accused?
Yeah. A decade ago, I could have been the newbie getting bullied by people I thought were doing it for the right reasons.
Oh, but they have to be against the *right* people…
Winterfox isn’t a SJW, she’s an asshole hacker who exploited a vulnerabiltiy in the social code. Think about it. If that’s what SJWs *were* we wouldn’t be angry about it. A big part of the current conversation is how to close that vulnerability so the next asshole hacker can’t come along and do it again.
In the meantime, still an SJB, still happy to be working for social justice, still even buying your book.
Boy I hope it’s a good one, though.
She utilized the same tactics being used against those with differing ideologies every day. With celebration.
Is attacking her own tribe the social vulnerability?
These are the people you want to identify with?
That might be a distinction without a difference.
Are Stalin and Mao real communists, or are they evil tyrants who merely imitated the coloration? The communist endorsed method of restructuring government selects for that sort of person.
Likewise all the other flavors of ‘we have to get blood on our hands, if we want to bring the New Jerusalem’. Such a movement attracts those who like blood on their hands as it attracts those who think the particular New Jerusalem is shiny.
“If that’s what SJWs *were* we wouldn’t be angry about it.”
Right. So witch burners wouldn’t be angry at all if they got burned as witches. Is that your thesis?
“A big part of the current conversation is how to close that vulnerability so the next asshole hacker can’t come along and do it again.”
I’d recommend reading up on the fate of Robespierre and Trotsky. Less Howard Zinn, more actual history.
Maybe with a little Eric Hoffer on the side.
If that’s what SJWs *were* we wouldn’t be angry about it.
Sure you would, if you didn’t like the taste of your own medicine.
It’s hardly news that a great, great many people suddenly discover that what they support greatly for other people is horrible when it’s applied consistently, to themselves.
Of course she’s an asshole. So is Zoe Quinn. Of course she was working a power play to make herself extremely important. So was Anna whats-her-face. This is about power… but it’s about power for the “good” SJW’s too. They get to decide who is good or bad. The whole idea of “privilege” is that you’ve GOT IT if you don’t see your privilege so someone else has to see your privilege for you. This whole philosophy from the bottom up depends on the need to give someone else the authority to identify your failings. So, someone steps forward, is often encouraged to do so, and finds that they can become a Very Important Person in whatever realm they function within. They will be sought for their endorsement and people will listen to their words and heed their warnings.
The ONLY way to close this vulnerability is to utterly refuse to give anyone that kind of authority and power. Ever. Over anyone.
I don’ t know if I can explain in a way that makes this clear. We used to, nearly all of us, care a great deal if we offended someone, particularly a vulnerable person. So the charge that something was offensive mattered. It stopped mattering to sane individuals (who still personally try to be decent people) when the SJW’s stacked the deck. If you were white you were a racist… no fix for that, you had “privilege” because of your race… you were a member of an “oppressor” race… thus you are guilty. And to protests that this was utterly irrational (and it IS utterly irrational, and also racist) the answer became… YOU CANNOT JUDGE.
And so now… we’ve got Judges.
The only sane reaction to that is to say screw the Judges.
Until individuals are the last arbiter of their *own* intentions… the vulnerability will remain.
Also, I wonder, at what point does a good person tell vulnerable people that the white patriarchy is actively trying to keep them down *when it’s not true*. If people are vulnerable and timid and think they can’t just walk in and flourish… what *sshat told them so?
*snort*
Sorry, but when the people at the forefront of the whole SJW thing explicitly refuse to listen to Larry when he’s trying to warn them about a person being a well known stalker and harasser of women – and actively praise him for ‘doxxing’ someone they DON’T like… well, you guys haven’t got an easy purge ahead of you. (See closer to the bottom of the post’s comments. The warnings were explicitly blocked, even after Larry explained that he only found out about it today.) Other people who are considered ‘big names’ on ‘your’ side – Damien Walter, Alex MacFarlane, to name two – HELPED Winterfox.
To the rest of us, especially the victims, this says “Your side thinks this stuff is TOTALLY okay.” That it’s OKAY for people to be threatened with loss of livelihood and life, to be threatened with rape, to lose their work, to be hacked and have their writing and art deleted, their joy destroyed, their privacy completely violated, because ‘they’re acceptable targets.’ As a victim of that I have very little sympathy to none, seeing this happen to the same people who cheered this same type of action on.
As long as it’s acceptable for SJWs to attack the people perceived as ‘privileged’ and ‘race/gender/cause’ traitors, you’ll have people like Winterfox, and Yamamanama/Clamps, and plenty of others like them, ‘abusing’ your stances.
To the credit of some of the people on your side, they’re starting to pay attention that you DO have abusers. So maybe, someday, you’ll get that fixed.
Looking at the timeline for that last night, I think it was more that a) Sommerville had blocked Larry ages ago, and b) the other didn’t understand at first why Correia was bringing up a tweet from June in November. Thus one said something like “what’s he ranting about now” and the other said something like “it was weird, but not a rant”… I suspect partially because Larry being concerned enough to warn them about a creepy stalker wasn’t behavior that Straw-Larry would ever do (thus the weird), and partially because the context of why he brought it up then wasn’t immediately clear since they wouldn’t have seen the comments on his post. I don’t know that they understand the concept of “that is a person I disagree with strongly, but they’re still a person”.
I get it. Even the author of the linked post starts out by implying that “punching up” is OK– explicitly stating her problem was the choice of targets– and only seems to realize that was wrong when she had someone who was channeling the attacks as victimization in a way she understood as victimization posting in the comments and she had to actually interact with a victim and accept that that was a real person. But as long as those people were safely anonymous, she was cool with it.
I hope that at least some of them will start to realize that what they’ve been doing is “othering” people so that they can be attacked without moral consequence, own up to it (if not publicly, then by modifying their future behavior), and ostracize the worst offenders (not just RH, but the ones that encouraged her, fed her targets, cheerfully dogpiled on…).
I don’t expect it to happen with most though. I expect RH will be treated as an aberration, and nothing much will happen to the enablers and cheerleaders.
i have a lot of sympathy for (most) of the victims of RH. I fully understand having none for the enablers who are shocked, shocked to have found people they liked were also against the wall…
Sigh. I always try my best with my writing. I don’t have any ‘free passes’ and I believe strongly in honorable conduct: if I’m asking people to pay for a product I try to give good worth. Just because I’ve donated this one to people that I believe need it, doesn’t change that. Actually, if anything it made me try harder. I already work an average 16 hour day 6 days a week (you know, privilege), so there isn’t a lot more I can give, but I did my best. Whether that is ‘good’ for you will depend on you, your tastes and your mood when you read it. I can’t do anything about those, so I can’t help you there. If parting with the $3.99 worries you, well, don’t. You are not compelled to. No one will shame you, no one will run secret campaigns banning you from playing your instrument, no one will run off and badmouth and lie about you.
As for your argument: it misses the basic thrust of what I said above. The hoo-haa with all the pie charts and graphs is to ‘prove’ to the SJW audience that it is okay to turn on an uppity rising role model – not because her conduct to other human beings was vile and disgusting but because she did that to the ‘wrong’ people. And of of course it just happens that Mixon’s ‘marginalized people’… aren’t, in sf/fantasy, particularly in the younger cohorts. If it wasn’t for Baen and Indy, the situation would be far worse. Any protest about that from the seekers of ‘justice’? Any quests to get the real figures? Crickets…
And indeed, the photons from the message are not yet finished panting and we’ve seen the RH/WF/BS tactics continuing as normal. I’m informed there is a search for ‘dirt’ on me. And failing to find that, they’ll do exactly as they did Larry Correia, and many others: they’ll make shit up and go on with their little secret whispering campaigns. And one the little SJW parrots is now claiming Sarah is actually RH etc! If you want to fix SJW – try getting your fellows to accept responsibility for their actions. Who was that fellow with the cherry tree again? When the next patch of lies, slanders, manipulation and abuse comes up, as it will what are you going to do? The victims of this hate and destruction will be hurt again (and there were many more who were weak, vulnerable, but just fine to beat up because they’re not camp-followers, or not loud enough about it) the SJW will not say, ‘oh that’s not true. He’s decent bloke. Cut him some slack’. They never have in the past and won’t in the future. They’ll say ‘ fresh blood in the water!’ Change that, and I’ll believe you want improve things.
My family were stupid enough to fight against birth being the determinant of hierarchical position (despite being near the top), in the British class system, they stood against birth being the same in apartheid. I’m not about suddenly start supporting it now. I believe people need to judged as individuals, and you build up the deserving, rather than breaking down, and putting up barriers to keep the looting for the chosen ones. I’m still as obstinate, as stupid as they were. I will continue to try to help people, individuals I believe need it, and reward people on merit.
Yeah. The thing about my being RH merely requires them to misrepresent everything I’ve ever said and ignore the fact I work for a living and don’t have time for this shite!
The next RH could be a group project… Deep CoIntelPro.
Letting oneself care too easily what other people call one is predator bait.
As an aside, expecting someone to care if they are called racist is pretty much not providing a supportive environment for people to not care if they are called racist. Which is totally being an enabler for predation.
Predators use words as tools, among other things. Hence, parents who are not particularly evil pay attention to who talks to their children how, and what the reactions are.
It can be harder to supervise social interaction over the internet, which is why it is at best for older children.
So, contrary to Synova, I’m wondering if the parents of these victims need to curtail their internet privileges until they grow up some more.
I’m a racist. NASCAR over Formula One, Talledega over Daytona, and if you don’t get the joke you’re a yankee carpet bagger.
I don’t mind being called a Yankee, a carpet bagger, or a scalawag.
I think the most mainstream one I have any great interest in is midgets. I heard some time back that Haas machine tools is getting into Formula, and I’m interested in how that goes.
And Bob, unkind, over at Larry’s. Funny, but unkind. I HAVE written things without Kit Marlowe in them!
I did not mean to suggest such. My apologies.
My reasoning was as follows. ‘If she could spare the energy to troll to that degree, I doubt she would skimp on the stories. The only reason not to publish them would be fiscal, and trolling is hardly financially prudent. If Sarah has, say, fifty stories under the Requires Hate pen name, it would take deliberate effort not to have any shape-shifters, Shakespeare or Kit Marlowe in any of them.’
Plus, I recently read the Kit Marlowe story of yours in the Baen book of monsters. I enjoyed it.
Of course. It wasn’t a complaint. I was checing out Larry’s thread and suddenly shouted with laughter,handed the tablet to Dan and said “my fans, they know me.” Then Dan found it and laughed. You are right& my hat is off to you.
I HAVE written things without Kit Marlowe in them!
Shopping lists?
Er? All Night Awake and a ton of short stories.
I just can’t resist a cheap shot, especially when it’s set up like that. 😀
Oh, you mean without? The SF, all of the Shifters, Witchfinder, um…. the furniture mysteries.
Now I have to double-check the furniture mysteries, to see if there’s no references at all. ‘Cause I thought you snuck one in when talking about the bookstore at one point…
Furniture mysteries?
Aha! The chifforobe done it!
Dipped Stripped and Dead. Elise Hyatt. yes, me.
Only buy the used ones, last time I heard they were busy stealing her book rights by randomly adding or subtracting sales to just enough to claim them.
Since it came up, I think in reference to Larry’s Internet argument list. On Facebook, yards and yards of SJW on both sides of the aisle. I made it a point to advise people that post on my page that I will argue points and that I considered ‘Idiot and Racist’ as a compliment. It proved I won the argument. If you can provide proof in the form of dialectic instead of rhetoric, we won’t need those words. I found that most still can’t use dialectic properly; but, rhetoric itself seems to have disappeared.
It is easier to destroy than it is to build. These people are talentless hacks in most cases, or people with just enough to be dangerous in others. So they tear down everything around themselves in order to make their own small accomplishments look larger.
Remember that kid in school who was always an a–hole? Well now you know were they went. Full of self righteous indignation, they point fingers and yell and scream, but it’s all just a cover for them to be able to go and destroy the things that they’re jealous of. They don’t really believe half of what they screech, if in fact they believe any of it at all.
You want to laugh at them, but the truth is that they’re so pathetic, and so destructive and damaged, that there really isn’t anything funny about them at all.
In fact, that’s the basis of the Frankfort School’s Critical Theory. Destroy everything with criticism, don’t propose any solutions, and eventually society will decline to the point Socialism can swoop in like a savior.
I think they’re missing a step in the middle like the underpants gnomes.
C4C
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[…] abuse by the accuser. It follows much the same recipe of cruel psychological manipulation which Synova described in the comments on my post last week – where the target does nothing they can see as wrong: “Imagine doing this to a […]