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2016 Hugo Awards Shortlist Dominated By Rightwing Campaign (theguardian.com)
Dave Knott quotes a report from The Guardian: The annual Hugo awards for the best science fiction of the year have once again been riven by controversy, as a concerted campaign by a conservative lobby has dominated the ballot. The Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies movements, which both separately campaign against a perceived bias towards liberal and leftwing science-fiction and fantasy authors, have managed to get the majority of their preferred nominations on to the final ballot, announced today. Since 2013, the Puppies factions have posted recommendations of works to combat the Hugo tendency to reward works that leaders of the movement deem "niche, academic, overtly to the left in ideology and flavor, and ultimately lacking what might best be called visceral, gut-level, swashbuckling fun." The Rabid Puppies has been successful in getting its nominations on the shortlist again this year; out of 80 recommendations, 62 have received sufficient votes to make the ballot. At MidAmeriCon II this year, it was announced that more than 4,000 nominating ballots were cast for the 2016 Hugo awards, almost double the previous record of 2,122 ballots. This news was initially greeted with cautious optimism, but the shortlist shows that the Puppies and their supporters have redoubled their efforts to "game" the awards. The shortlist will be voted upon and the winners revealed at the forthcoming Worldcon in Kansas in August.
but I think it's not really so evil to organize. This is a system that is getting like 2 to 4 thousand votes, and this so called conservative cabal still didn't get all of their candidates into the final.
We are talking about nothing. This is nothing. This is a world with 7 Billion people in it. The margin of victory in this ballot is like 400 votes.
The short version is, maybe conservatives are 'gaming' this, but the thing they are gaming is completely meaningless. It's a stupid award and nobody should care who wins it. Read what you like, sheeple!
Yes, the right believes in a small government, a government that can do nothing except spy and repress the citizenship. Force their brain dead religion on people (including helping crucify the left leaning Messiah, arsehole was for the people and even shared wine with the common person), throw people in jail (or execute them) for an endless list of illegal acts, often acts that don't hurt anyone else, see eg all the drug laws.
They routinely claim to be strict Constitutionalists but disagree with both the first and second amendments as they're always in favour of Congress passing laws for limiting speech for certain reasons and they're always in favour of limiting who can bear arms to themselves when the amendment is pretty clear, people have the right to bear arms. Not certain people have the right to bear arms.
They've even taken over Libertarianism, changing it from a political movement to empower the people to a political movement to empower the corporation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
I guess the SJW trash has been ruining it.
How come I never hear "SJW" except on Slashdot?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I see the opposite. Maybe people tend to become more moderate, with less "fire in the belly" as they get older.
In my case it's not a loss of the enthusiasm of youth. While I do have more experience (and can thus see and avoid higher-order effects that are larger than first-order effects - and that's the main difference between a young liberal and an older conservative), there are other considerations.
The body is wearing out. (That's what happens from running the software on a primate for the hardware.) The government healthcare bureaucracy has drastically impeded the research necessary for prolonging life and restoring youthful characteristics and will most certainly spike any such treatment, at least until most of us boomers are safely killed off. Cryonics is a really long-shot bet. The government has also ripped off most of my income and blocked me from earning anywhere near my potential (while the Republicans talked shrinking it and instead grew it until the boomers were passing retirement age so income tax cuts would be moot.
When you're faced with limited remaining life in a fragile body on miniscule after-ripoffs savings, with a healthcare system that looks to be dedicated to killing you while retaining plausible deniability, idealism and self-reliance start to take a back seat to staying alive, fed, clothed, and housed.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Actually they are. There is a push to make birth control available in the US over the counter, like it is in most of the world. But the abortion lobby doesn't want it to happen, because they would lose a revenue stream and the power that comes along with statutory middle-man status.