Your comment was based on what... that I said tanks could operate alone? They can. Just like infantry... in the right circumstances.
NEITHER one can operate alone in the WRONG circumstances.
Competent use of EITHER force requires that you avoid such situations. Thus if you go into those situations despite your units not being able to handle it... then you lose.
Does a tank suck in places where it can't maneuver and enemies can get within feet of it with AT rockets?
Sure. An aircraft carrier sucks in the same circumstance. Do aircraft carriers suck? No. You just don't do that.
Are infantry better in built up areas where you're fighting house to house? Well, given that tanks can't climb stairs or kick doors down they're at something of a disadvantage.
however, tanks can absolutely fight that target. They just do it differently. They stay back. Shell the buildings before they advance... Then roll over the debre... rise and repeat until they get from one side of the city to the other.
Alternatively... they can hang out in open areas where supplies are brought into the city and just cut off supply... and wait. The people in the cities can either leave the city or starve. The tanks don't even need to enter the city. This presumes they have the time.
The incidents that tanks were cited as being obsolete included the Israelis getting surprised by AT rockets or getting their tanks trapped in stupid situations. And I think there was some talk about the Russians f'ing up by taking their tanks into a city without first dropping buildings as they went.
That's not how you use tanks.
All the examples of why tanks are bad all presuppose the tank commanders/generals don't know how to use tanks or are intentionally ignoring the rules.
Well... everything sucks in that context. Your comments are like pointing out that infantry doesn't work well in deep sea naval engagements because all the soldiers are swimming.
Obviously infantry doesn't work in that situation. Infantry also doesn't work well in air to air combat... they can't flap their arms hard enough to get enough lift. Its fun to watch though.
In given circumstances anything is good or bad. That of course includes tanks... as well as infantry.
... the following post to that one address your point...
I'll quote it for you as well, twit: "" Dbill, you're adorable. Never change.
As to your citation, I actually addressed that point at length. I conceded that there are contexts where a tank is inferior. But I pointed out that is true with anything. I then pointed out that the trick to military tactics with ANYTHING is to avoid situations where your forces are weak, avoid situations where the enemy strong, try to stay in situations where you are strong, and lastly try to hit the enemy where they are weakest.
Saying "in this one specific context tanks are shitty" doesn't really undermine my position because everything has such a context and the trick is to NOT allow your forces to be in that position.
I talked about a lot of things going back and forth with the fellow. Battleships for example are strongest in a particular context... ideally at long range. A battleship can have a range of up to about 20km at least in WW2. Future models of the same concept might have different ranges. However, a fishing boat with a magnetic limpet can sink a battleship if the fishing boat is able to get that close and attach a limpet against the hull. Now obviously... rule one for a battleship is to not let that happen. And battleships have the ability to stop that from happening because they have an array of weaponry that can destroy such ships long before they get into that kind of range.
And the same is true with destroyers and cruisers and aircraft carriers. They each have a context where they're strong and another context where they are weak. Aircraft carriers are considered to be the strongest naval warships of the modern era and generally have been so since WW2. They are so powerful because they have greater range and accuracy than any other ship unless you want to cite cruise missile ships or Boomer Submarines. they also have incredible fire power and because of the extreme range, accuracy, and fire power they have relatively light armor. Now, a battleship versus an aircraft carrier at a range of a couple miles is a very bad situation for the carrier. A WW2 era battleship easily destroy a modern Ford Class US carrier before the US carrier was able to really do anything to the battleship. In THAT context the battleship is superior.
Now does this mean that units shouldn't be used together? No, they obviously should. Tanks with infantry are typically better. However, the argument was made that tanks could not fight without infantry where as infantry could. And this is not accurate.
Under the right circumstances either tanks or infantry can operate independently though they are more flexible together.
There are of course many instances of infantry fighting alone sometimes against tanks sometimes not. And there are also many incidents of tanks fighting alone with and without infantry.
The argument made against the tanks is that they're bad against dug in infantry with AT rockets. And to that, I say only if the tanks get too close to the enemy, lose the ability to manuver, and otherwise throw away their advantages while failing to exploit the weaknesses of their enemy.
As such... I did respond to him as I am responding to you.
I am not wrong.
The problem with people like you Dbill, my little melted ice cream cone, is that you don't care if you're right. All you care about is winning. You just look for things to nit pick me on so you can claim a win. But as to whether anything you're saying is actually accurate or rational or informed or insightful... you have no interest.
And the mind fucking truth that sophists like you have grasped about stoics like me... is that when push comes to shove... you lose against people like me because we don't care if we win. We care if we're RIGHT. And in being right we are bulletproof. You can't touch me. And because I'm bulletproof I can walk through your fire as if it isn't even there... and choke your stupid position to death while looking into your stupid little
As to the act... its never been invoked. All its doing right now is keeping premiums down. Frankly, it was put in place from what I understand to keep activists from fucking over the industry through insurance.
Which is something you find in many situations. I said previously about executions, the anti execution lobby has interfered with the supply of lethal injection drug supplies as a means to stop executions prompting some states to threaten to go to firing squads, hangings, or electrocution should the supplies not be left alone.
The law hasn't been invoked. So I'm not seeing where you're getting so excited. All damage claims have been paid out of private insurance funds thus far.
If you truly care about government spending we can talk about what 70 percent of the US federal budget is spent on... it isn't nuclear power.
I rather suspect you'll lose interest in government spending quickly should I do that... which... frankly undermines the relevance of the citation. And really if we want to talk about subsidies... solar and wind can't survive without subsidies either. And they get far more than nuclear does. Want to cut off the solar subsidies? Mostly what nuclear is getting is protection from trolls. I think everything should have that protection. Trolls are annoying.
As to 2005.. so between 1972 or when ever hte last reactor was commissioned to 2005 you'd concede that such groups could and did interfere with that process? And I'll noted that we've just recently gotten our first new reactor commissioned just in the last couple years.
So... I wasn't wrong... it was just fixed. Whether the fix is complete is another matter. People have ways of getting around laws like that. We'll see.
Regardless, the DOE did confirm that the nuclear storage project was shut down for political reasons. Not for safety. Aka... activists.
Why? No compulsion. what we need are national referendums... not petitions.
The difference is that a referendum would carry the weight of law. It would force the government to comply... ideally every law must include an "or else" clause. All good laws have them. Its where punishments are specified for violation.
For a referendum system to work, you'd need a national ID system though. Otherwise script kiddies in Russia are going to make Tuesday Silly Hat day in the US.
Do so more clearly and I'll address it. If you have any interest in getting to the bottom of anything then you'll do it. If you just want to use it as a pretext to make stupid comments then you won't.
Little experiment. We'll see what you really care about.;)
I generally agree about Card, that said... I do question that he would win if he did write something that good. You saw how many people were pissed that they were making an Ender's Game movie.
As to Larry, I'd never heard of him before now.
As to the treatment of women in the stories... speaking merely of Ringo, he wrote quite a lot of stories with women that were not fuckable house wives. They were war stories so they had to be able to hang in that environment. They were tough cold fighters.
As to the men... they're not all muscled jocks either...
Remember Full Metal Jacket? Remember all those guys that showed up at boot camp. All different sorts of people. But once they went through training and then got dropped in the shit... they HAD to be tough... or they died.
And that's basically what you find with Ringo's characters. Its not that the characters are card board it is that our personalities are plastic to our environment. You put someone in a situation and they're going to try and adapt to it. And if you're constantly in life and death situations it is going to have a certain effect on your personality.
For one thing you need to be able to deal with the fear of getting killed. And the best way to deal with that is not think about it. A certain amount of bravado is psychologically useful. Beyond that, you will have other things to deal with... depression... despair... horror. And each of these has to be dealt with in a sustainable manner. We have video of US soldiers talking to each other in Afghanistan while manning positions that are coming under attack from Taliban.
What do you think all those guys sound like? They're making jokes... they say "fucking eat it" kill a guy, they're telling dirty jokes to get each other to laugh...
Think they're happy to be there? No... Its miserable, scary, and horrifying. But they have to wake up every morning and hold that position against people that want to kill them. So they do what they do to balance out their mental state.
Something you have to keep in mind about a lot of these authors is that they either personally went to vietnam, had some kind of military background, or at least studied it to some extent. And the the way they're writing about these people... it sounds the way it sounds if you don't understand what is below it.
War is scary, horrifying, and depressing. How do you do it every day for years on end?
See?
Anyway, most of these authors don't write something I'd consider hugo worthy. though each of them probably has written something that should at least be nominated. They have their moments.
In fairness, Scalzi was doing a bit more than that. He was saying "who else should get nominated in this year's hugos"...
That seems innocent but the question isn't being asked in a neutral political space.
As to your problems with Card... I haven't really followed him in years either. I enjoyed ender's game and a few other books but he doesn't seem to have written anything in awhile worth reading.
As to not liking authors because of their politics... it depends on how you deal with that.
For example, I don't much like Scalzi's and Stross's politics. Scalzi has ruined his Old Man's War series with his politics. He's written FIVE books in that series and the first one was an action packed romp as a space marine. It was full of these hilarious situations where he was fighting people... fully formed people... but they were 3 inches high... alien obviously. Just an example of the nutty aliens he was being sent in to kill. And sure, the Colonial Union which was the Human force organizing the whole thing was of dubious moral value. But the whole galaxy was full of creepy crawlies that didn't mind killing humans either.
He's written four books after that. Each one has been pretty boring. Books 2 and 3 had him basically telling the same story from different less interesting perspectives. Very little action... and all of it coached in this " this is what I meant to say" subtext. It was sad. Book four and five are better... but nothing near as good as the first one because he's still trying to walk back what the first book was... which was FUN... and ENTERTAINING.
But do I blacklist Scalzi? No. Would I say he shouldn't get Hugo awards? Absolutely not.
As to Stross... he basically hates Americans. He's so anti American he doesn't know he's Anti American. He thinks its like hating cockroaches or something. Its sort of funny how thick his cognitive dissonance is on the issue.
In the Laundry Series, he has a British anti demon government service. They protect the British people from horrible nightmares beyond time and space. And to do that, they use Zombies as inexpensive guards, they put mental control spells on people so they must obey orders... total mind control, some of their more powerful agents are soul eating monsters, and his main love interest is a woman that uses a violin made of human bone that is possessed by a demon which she uses to unravel the soul of anyone she turns it on.
Those are the British and their force is called "the Laundry"... the American force which doesn't do anything even remotely as fucked up is routinely referred to as utterly without moral compunction... always referred to as "well you know how those people are"... and the name of their organization is "The Black Chamber". All of this excluding that the UK and the US when it comes to intelligence and high level government are very friendly with each other. But in Strosses work... the Americans are soulless monsters... even though by all indication the British are up to some very dark shit.
Now would I black list Stross even though he has a strong bias against my country, culture, and people?
No. He's a very entertaining writer and if I ignore the stupid digs at America in there, then his books are very well written and very fun to read.
And that's my attitude. I don't black list people because I don't like their politics. I don't like Michael Moore as a very polarizing example. the reasons are something I'm not going to get into, but I'll still listen to him he gets to the point quickly.
We have a big country and a big world. If you just exile everyone not of your politics then you're going to very quickly find yourself in a hug box.
You don't like that Card has issues with homosexuality? Let me tell, a lot of the world has such issues. Go to eastern europe. Go to the middle east. Go to Asia. Go to South America.
Would you want to black list everyone from those regions of the world? Because I assure you most of them would agree more with Card than you.
If all that you focus on is the opinion then you're clearly not reading the facts.
I read them both. I take it like this:
Here are facts Here are my opinions of these facts
If the facts are valid then I can look at the opinion and see if that makes any sense.
I don't just read something "think oh this has a biased opinion" and discount all information in it.
If I did that, I'd never read anything. The vast majority of news stories by anyone contain a lot of opinion and attempts to influence. Read/watch/listen to PBS... its FULL of opinion especially where they're telling you it is JUST news.
Get a couple other sources to verify facts... things line up or not... then you draw your own opinions.
What would you accept as an example? There is lots of evidence of a campaign to vote that way on social media. People that are self identified as SJWs saying stuff like "SJWs burned the village down to save it" and
""Your VOTE is not wanted.
Your BOOKS are not wanted.
YOU are not wanted.
Period.""
Say what you like about the SP, but clearly there is an ideological opposition here. You don't get people self identifying as SJWs and then saying things like this unless such people feel invested in the outcome.
And there is of course evidence of coordination. As the Breitbart article points out, the SP votes were often split between four different authors while the opposition put all their votes into "no one".
Frankly, the more I look at this... the more it looks like typical social networking brigading in action.
Hmmm... if you strip out the overwrought opinion, did the fellow say anything that was inaccurate? Can you cite something factually incorrect or misleading?
In fairness, they're saying that there is a new pattern of brigading and block voting going on where previously that was not a feature of the awards.
I think you're right that the Sad puppies probably do have a weak argument. That said... I think they do have one and possibly the way the award system is structured should make the voting system less vulnerable to manipulation by cliches.
Just do that. No recriminations. No admissions. No punishments. Just change the way the votes work so that cliche voting is harder.
How to do that? I am not familiar enough with their voting system to really have a clue. I can think of a few ways its done in other voting systems but I don't know which method would be applicable without studying their situation in some detail.
Fair enough. If people voted to have no award given then I've no problem with what happened.
I will merely point out that there does seem to be an issue with "brigading" going on with these awards and apparently both these sad puppy people as well as some past winners of these awards have used that as a mechanism to secure an award.
We know how this works on social media... its not constructive. Something possibly needs to happen to control block voting or cliche voting.
I'm not advocating for either of these fellows. I've read quite a few of Scalzi's books and Stross's books... those are two of the guys the Sad puppy people are attacking apparently. Both are good authors. Though, I will grant that they both let their politics get away from them at times. Scalzi has basically destroyed the Old Man's War series by trying to pull the story in a direction it isn't going to go in. And if you read Stross's Laundry series you can see his politics get the better of him in a few consistent places.
I'm also not especially aware of these people organizing the sad puppy thing. I've never read them. Though they cite people getting blackballed for politics like Card and that's a valid point. Card is Christian and he doesn't support gay marriage. I mean... hold any opinion you want on that but that has nothing to do with whether someone should or shouldn't get an award for writing.
As I said, I think there is an argument on both sides and I think what is happening is a consequence of people not working out some sort of acceptable protocol for dealing with what might have been a simple thing without the heavy handed power plays.
A lot of these dramatic shit shows are the result of censorship or people being dicks to each other or other offenses that ultimately piss people off so badly that whatever started it doesn't matter any more. People are just mad at that point. That really should be avoided. Even if people are full of shit and whatever they want is something they shouldn't have... don't slap them down unless you're prepared to deal with the consequences of pissing them off.
On the one hand, there probably are some political blow hards fucking up the process... name a place where that isn't true.
On the other hand, the Hugos are not supposed to be a popularity contest as much as a recognition of something that was actually well written or interesting to OTHER writers of science fiction.
THAT said.. refusing to award someone that the people that paid 40 dollars a pop to vote in the election... is also wrong. By the bylaws of the organization I'm guessing that is a violation or something of their own rules.
I don't know... the whole thing looks like it got completely out of fucking control somewhere. I don't know where it started. But someone should have been able to reach a compromise rather than these power plays. When everything becomes power plays it is because people are being unreasonable thus reducing everything to force.
That's why you buy phones that permit you to root them... including full bootloader access. Then you blow out whatever the default rom is and replace it with something else... or just delete the bullshit.
This is really only an issue because so many people have locked phones.
When you buy a PC, the crap that might come on it if you buy it with preinstalled shit doesn't matter that much. You CAN uninstall it. But if the phone is locked... you can't. And THAT is the problem.
Idiot progressive accuses people of being racist when in fact the stupid bitch confuses her own search history for racist topics suggested by twitter. The cow was LOOKING for racist stuff about herself... didn't find it apparently... then saw her search history and said "oh there's the racism I was trying to find"... Morons. http://www.independent.co.uk/n...
You think this is hard, shithead? Easiest thing in the world. All I'm doing is walking outside and pointing at the Sun. Its right there. See it?
As to your compliment about my knowledge of classical western philosophy. Thanks. Its good to occasionally get some recognition for one's knowledge and skills especially from people that don't like you.
It means more, no?
You were attempting to use that as a backhanded compliment but you don't give backhanded compliments to people that didn't have something going on. So thanks.
Anyway, quote yourself and we'll vivisect this beast and I'll show you where the tumors are... or admit I was in error and apologize to you. Have I ever apologized to you? I don't remember. I do it quite freely when I'm found in error. It tends to freak people out that are arguing with me because I hold my line so firmly... and then instantly give way when I'm shown to be in error.
The secret ingredient is integrity. Once you understand that, I become a less mysterious beast. I know you won't accept that at this juncture... you're too determined to prove I'm a hell hound spawned from the abyss at this point. I've gotten the respect from a long list of people that started out not liking me. We'll see. You may be the next one.;-D
Slashdot Mirror
The only thing getting rubbed is my throbbing member while I laugh at you idiocy.
I dealt with your stupid comment. In detail.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Your comment was based on what... that I said tanks could operate alone? They can. Just like infantry... in the right circumstances.
NEITHER one can operate alone in the WRONG circumstances.
Competent use of EITHER force requires that you avoid such situations. Thus if you go into those situations despite your units not being able to handle it... then you lose.
Does a tank suck in places where it can't maneuver and enemies can get within feet of it with AT rockets?
Sure. An aircraft carrier sucks in the same circumstance. Do aircraft carriers suck? No. You just don't do that.
Are infantry better in built up areas where you're fighting house to house? Well, given that tanks can't climb stairs or kick doors down they're at something of a disadvantage.
however, tanks can absolutely fight that target. They just do it differently. They stay back. Shell the buildings before they advance... Then roll over the debre... rise and repeat until they get from one side of the city to the other.
Alternatively... they can hang out in open areas where supplies are brought into the city and just cut off supply... and wait. The people in the cities can either leave the city or starve. The tanks don't even need to enter the city. This presumes they have the time.
The incidents that tanks were cited as being obsolete included the Israelis getting surprised by AT rockets or getting their tanks trapped in stupid situations. And I think there was some talk about the Russians f'ing up by taking their tanks into a city without first dropping buildings as they went.
That's not how you use tanks.
All the examples of why tanks are bad all presuppose the tank commanders/generals don't know how to use tanks or are intentionally ignoring the rules.
Well... everything sucks in that context. Your comments are like pointing out that infantry doesn't work well in deep sea naval engagements because all the soldiers are swimming.
Obviously infantry doesn't work in that situation. Infantry also doesn't work well in air to air combat... they can't flap their arms hard enough to get enough lift. Its fun to watch though.
In given circumstances anything is good or bad. That of course includes tanks... as well as infantry.
... the following post to that one address your point...
I'll quote it for you as well, twit:
""
Dbill, you're adorable. Never change.
As to your citation, I actually addressed that point at length. I conceded that there are contexts where a tank is inferior. But I pointed out that is true with anything. I then pointed out that the trick to military tactics with ANYTHING is to avoid situations where your forces are weak, avoid situations where the enemy strong, try to stay in situations where you are strong, and lastly try to hit the enemy where they are weakest.
Saying "in this one specific context tanks are shitty" doesn't really undermine my position because everything has such a context and the trick is to NOT allow your forces to be in that position.
I talked about a lot of things going back and forth with the fellow. Battleships for example are strongest in a particular context... ideally at long range. A battleship can have a range of up to about 20km at least in WW2. Future models of the same concept might have different ranges. However, a fishing boat with a magnetic limpet can sink a battleship if the fishing boat is able to get that close and attach a limpet against the hull. Now obviously... rule one for a battleship is to not let that happen. And battleships have the ability to stop that from happening because they have an array of weaponry that can destroy such ships long before they get into that kind of range.
And the same is true with destroyers and cruisers and aircraft carriers. They each have a context where they're strong and another context where they are weak. Aircraft carriers are considered to be the strongest naval warships of the modern era and generally have been so since WW2. They are so powerful because they have greater range and accuracy than any other ship unless you want to cite cruise missile ships or Boomer Submarines. they also have incredible fire power and because of the extreme range, accuracy, and fire power they have relatively light armor. Now, a battleship versus an aircraft carrier at a range of a couple miles is a very bad situation for the carrier. A WW2 era battleship easily destroy a modern Ford Class US carrier before the US carrier was able to really do anything to the battleship. In THAT context the battleship is superior.
Now does this mean that units shouldn't be used together? No, they obviously should. Tanks with infantry are typically better. However, the argument was made that tanks could not fight without infantry where as infantry could. And this is not accurate.
Under the right circumstances either tanks or infantry can operate independently though they are more flexible together.
There are of course many instances of infantry fighting alone sometimes against tanks sometimes not. And there are also many incidents of tanks fighting alone with and without infantry.
The argument made against the tanks is that they're bad against dug in infantry with AT rockets. And to that, I say only if the tanks get too close to the enemy, lose the ability to manuver, and otherwise throw away their advantages while failing to exploit the weaknesses of their enemy.
As such... I did respond to him as I am responding to you.
I am not wrong.
The problem with people like you Dbill, my little melted ice cream cone, is that you don't care if you're right. All you care about is winning. You just look for things to nit pick me on so you can claim a win. But as to whether anything you're saying is actually accurate or rational or informed or insightful... you have no interest.
And the mind fucking truth that sophists like you have grasped about stoics like me... is that when push comes to shove... you lose against people like me because we don't care if we win. We care if we're RIGHT. And in being right we are bulletproof. You can't touch me. And because I'm bulletproof I can walk through your fire as if it isn't even there... and choke your stupid position to death while looking into your stupid little
These people:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
As to the act... its never been invoked. All its doing right now is keeping premiums down. Frankly, it was put in place from what I understand to keep activists from fucking over the industry through insurance.
Which is something you find in many situations. I said previously about executions, the anti execution lobby has interfered with the supply of lethal injection drug supplies as a means to stop executions prompting some states to threaten to go to firing squads, hangings, or electrocution should the supplies not be left alone.
The law hasn't been invoked. So I'm not seeing where you're getting so excited. All damage claims have been paid out of private insurance funds thus far.
If you truly care about government spending we can talk about what 70 percent of the US federal budget is spent on... it isn't nuclear power.
I rather suspect you'll lose interest in government spending quickly should I do that... which... frankly undermines the relevance of the citation. And really if we want to talk about subsidies... solar and wind can't survive without subsidies either. And they get far more than nuclear does. Want to cut off the solar subsidies? Mostly what nuclear is getting is protection from trolls. I think everything should have that protection. Trolls are annoying.
As to 2005.. so between 1972 or when ever hte last reactor was commissioned to 2005 you'd concede that such groups could and did interfere with that process? And I'll noted that we've just recently gotten our first new reactor commissioned just in the last couple years.
So... I wasn't wrong... it was just fixed. Whether the fix is complete is another matter. People have ways of getting around laws like that. We'll see.
Regardless, the DOE did confirm that the nuclear storage project was shut down for political reasons. Not for safety. Aka... activists.
This had no reason to be in a separate post. My other post to you addressed this issue. You're talking about old reactor designs.
An example of what I'd suggest for nuclear power:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
You keep assuming I want to build 3 mile island. Your position is out of date. Obsolete.
We have many designs that can operate on spent fuel much less requiring highly refined uranium.
Again you're assuming 1960s designs. Its not valid.
Why? No compulsion. what we need are national referendums... not petitions.
The difference is that a referendum would carry the weight of law. It would force the government to comply... ideally every law must include an "or else" clause. All good laws have them. Its where punishments are specified for violation.
For a referendum system to work, you'd need a national ID system though. Otherwise script kiddies in Russia are going to make Tuesday Silly Hat day in the US.
Looked back, didn't see it.
Do so more clearly and I'll address it. If you have any interest in getting to the bottom of anything then you'll do it. If you just want to use it as a pretext to make stupid comments then you won't.
Little experiment. We'll see what you really care about. ;)
I generally agree about Card, that said... I do question that he would win if he did write something that good. You saw how many people were pissed that they were making an Ender's Game movie.
As to Larry, I'd never heard of him before now.
As to the treatment of women in the stories... speaking merely of Ringo, he wrote quite a lot of stories with women that were not fuckable house wives. They were war stories so they had to be able to hang in that environment. They were tough cold fighters.
As to the men... they're not all muscled jocks either...
Remember Full Metal Jacket? Remember all those guys that showed up at boot camp. All different sorts of people. But once they went through training and then got dropped in the shit... they HAD to be tough... or they died.
And that's basically what you find with Ringo's characters. Its not that the characters are card board it is that our personalities are plastic to our environment. You put someone in a situation and they're going to try and adapt to it. And if you're constantly in life and death situations it is going to have a certain effect on your personality.
For one thing you need to be able to deal with the fear of getting killed. And the best way to deal with that is not think about it. A certain amount of bravado is psychologically useful. Beyond that, you will have other things to deal with... depression... despair... horror. And each of these has to be dealt with in a sustainable manner. We have video of US soldiers talking to each other in Afghanistan while manning positions that are coming under attack from Taliban.
What do you think all those guys sound like? They're making jokes... they say "fucking eat it" kill a guy, they're telling dirty jokes to get each other to laugh...
Think they're happy to be there? No... Its miserable, scary, and horrifying. But they have to wake up every morning and hold that position against people that want to kill them. So they do what they do to balance out their mental state.
Something you have to keep in mind about a lot of these authors is that they either personally went to vietnam, had some kind of military background, or at least studied it to some extent. And the the way they're writing about these people... it sounds the way it sounds if you don't understand what is below it.
War is scary, horrifying, and depressing. How do you do it every day for years on end?
See?
Anyway, most of these authors don't write something I'd consider hugo worthy. though each of them probably has written something that should at least be nominated. They have their moments.
In fairness, Scalzi was doing a bit more than that. He was saying "who else should get nominated in this year's hugos"...
That seems innocent but the question isn't being asked in a neutral political space.
As to your problems with Card... I haven't really followed him in years either. I enjoyed ender's game and a few other books but he doesn't seem to have written anything in awhile worth reading.
As to not liking authors because of their politics... it depends on how you deal with that.
For example, I don't much like Scalzi's and Stross's politics. Scalzi has ruined his Old Man's War series with his politics. He's written FIVE books in that series and the first one was an action packed romp as a space marine. It was full of these hilarious situations where he was fighting people... fully formed people... but they were 3 inches high... alien obviously. Just an example of the nutty aliens he was being sent in to kill. And sure, the Colonial Union which was the Human force organizing the whole thing was of dubious moral value. But the whole galaxy was full of creepy crawlies that didn't mind killing humans either.
He's written four books after that. Each one has been pretty boring. Books 2 and 3 had him basically telling the same story from different less interesting perspectives. Very little action... and all of it coached in this " this is what I meant to say" subtext. It was sad. Book four and five are better... but nothing near as good as the first one because he's still trying to walk back what the first book was... which was FUN... and ENTERTAINING.
But do I blacklist Scalzi? No. Would I say he shouldn't get Hugo awards? Absolutely not.
As to Stross... he basically hates Americans. He's so anti American he doesn't know he's Anti American. He thinks its like hating cockroaches or something. Its sort of funny how thick his cognitive dissonance is on the issue.
In the Laundry Series, he has a British anti demon government service. They protect the British people from horrible nightmares beyond time and space. And to do that, they use Zombies as inexpensive guards, they put mental control spells on people so they must obey orders... total mind control, some of their more powerful agents are soul eating monsters, and his main love interest is a woman that uses a violin made of human bone that is possessed by a demon which she uses to unravel the soul of anyone she turns it on.
Those are the British and their force is called "the Laundry"... the American force which doesn't do anything even remotely as fucked up is routinely referred to as utterly without moral compunction... always referred to as "well you know how those people are"... and the name of their organization is "The Black Chamber". All of this excluding that the UK and the US when it comes to intelligence and high level government are very friendly with each other. But in Strosses work... the Americans are soulless monsters... even though by all indication the British are up to some very dark shit.
Now would I black list Stross even though he has a strong bias against my country, culture, and people?
No. He's a very entertaining writer and if I ignore the stupid digs at America in there, then his books are very well written and very fun to read.
And that's my attitude. I don't black list people because I don't like their politics. I don't like Michael Moore as a very polarizing example. the reasons are something I'm not going to get into, but I'll still listen to him he gets to the point quickly.
We have a big country and a big world. If you just exile everyone not of your politics then you're going to very quickly find yourself in a hug box.
You don't like that Card has issues with homosexuality? Let me tell, a lot of the world has such issues. Go to eastern europe. Go to the middle east. Go to Asia. Go to South America.
Would you want to black list everyone from those regions of the world? Because I assure you most of them would agree more with Card than you.
The quotations I cited both came from this guy:
http://daddywarpig.com/
He appears to be more than some troll. And he was apparently very active in the whole thing.
If all that you focus on is the opinion then you're clearly not reading the facts.
I read them both. I take it like this:
Here are facts
Here are my opinions of these facts
If the facts are valid then I can look at the opinion and see if that makes any sense.
I don't just read something "think oh this has a biased opinion" and discount all information in it.
If I did that, I'd never read anything. The vast majority of news stories by anyone contain a lot of opinion and attempts to influence. Read/watch/listen to PBS... its FULL of opinion especially where they're telling you it is JUST news.
Get a couple other sources to verify facts... things line up or not... then you draw your own opinions.
What would you accept as an example? There is lots of evidence of a campaign to vote that way on social media. People that are self identified as SJWs saying stuff like "SJWs burned the village down to save it" and
""Your VOTE is not wanted.
Your BOOKS are not wanted.
YOU are not wanted.
Period.""
Say what you like about the SP, but clearly there is an ideological opposition here. You don't get people self identifying as SJWs and then saying things like this unless such people feel invested in the outcome.
And there is of course evidence of coordination. As the Breitbart article points out, the SP votes were often split between four different authors while the opposition put all their votes into "no one".
Frankly, the more I look at this... the more it looks like typical social networking brigading in action.
there's apparently been blatant brigading going on... and brigading is a real thing.
Hmmm... if you strip out the overwrought opinion, did the fellow say anything that was inaccurate? Can you cite something factually incorrect or misleading?
I never said they were part of california... I was giving another example of the same thing... twit.
We're talking about idiot progressives... not california specifically and exclusively.
You're officially too stupid to have this discussion...
Why is it that nearly all ACs are completely brain dead? Its a mystery.
In fairness, they're saying that there is a new pattern of brigading and block voting going on where previously that was not a feature of the awards.
I think you're right that the Sad puppies probably do have a weak argument. That said... I think they do have one and possibly the way the award system is structured should make the voting system less vulnerable to manipulation by cliches.
Just do that. No recriminations. No admissions. No punishments. Just change the way the votes work so that cliche voting is harder.
How to do that? I am not familiar enough with their voting system to really have a clue. I can think of a few ways its done in other voting systems but I don't know which method would be applicable without studying their situation in some detail.
Fair enough. If people voted to have no award given then I've no problem with what happened.
I will merely point out that there does seem to be an issue with "brigading" going on with these awards and apparently both these sad puppy people as well as some past winners of these awards have used that as a mechanism to secure an award.
We know how this works on social media... its not constructive. Something possibly needs to happen to control block voting or cliche voting.
I'm not advocating for either of these fellows. I've read quite a few of Scalzi's books and Stross's books... those are two of the guys the Sad puppy people are attacking apparently. Both are good authors. Though, I will grant that they both let their politics get away from them at times. Scalzi has basically destroyed the Old Man's War series by trying to pull the story in a direction it isn't going to go in. And if you read Stross's Laundry series you can see his politics get the better of him in a few consistent places.
I'm also not especially aware of these people organizing the sad puppy thing. I've never read them. Though they cite people getting blackballed for politics like Card and that's a valid point. Card is Christian and he doesn't support gay marriage. I mean... hold any opinion you want on that but that has nothing to do with whether someone should or shouldn't get an award for writing.
As I said, I think there is an argument on both sides and I think what is happening is a consequence of people not working out some sort of acceptable protocol for dealing with what might have been a simple thing without the heavy handed power plays.
A lot of these dramatic shit shows are the result of censorship or people being dicks to each other or other offenses that ultimately piss people off so badly that whatever started it doesn't matter any more. People are just mad at that point. That really should be avoided. Even if people are full of shit and whatever they want is something they shouldn't have... don't slap them down unless you're prepared to deal with the consequences of pissing them off.
apparently I mistook what happened... the people that voted, voted for no award to be issued. So I'm fine with that.
Offer a complete argument if you have an actual criticism.
Don't be a goofball, watch some reviews, read some reviews, make an informed guess, and buy online with an unlocked bootloader.
I've never regretted a phone bought this way. They all work just fine.
As to the sales associates... they don't know anything and they never will. So you can let that little dream die or pound sand.
Don't mean to be a dick but those are actually your options.
Buying online works for me. I don't do it blind. I try to research the phone first and generally learn what I need to know very quickly.
On the one hand, there probably are some political blow hards fucking up the process... name a place where that isn't true.
On the other hand, the Hugos are not supposed to be a popularity contest as much as a recognition of something that was actually well written or interesting to OTHER writers of science fiction.
THAT said.. refusing to award someone that the people that paid 40 dollars a pop to vote in the election... is also wrong. By the bylaws of the organization I'm guessing that is a violation or something of their own rules.
I don't know... the whole thing looks like it got completely out of fucking control somewhere. I don't know where it started. But someone should have been able to reach a compromise rather than these power plays. When everything becomes power plays it is because people are being unreasonable thus reducing everything to force.
That's why you buy phones that permit you to root them... including full bootloader access. Then you blow out whatever the default rom is and replace it with something else... or just delete the bullshit.
This is really only an issue because so many people have locked phones.
When you buy a PC, the crap that might come on it if you buy it with preinstalled shit doesn't matter that much. You CAN uninstall it. But if the phone is locked... you can't. And THAT is the problem.
Yale professor:
http://yaledailynews.com/blog/...
From the Rutgers Dean of Students:
"There is no such thing as Free Speech"
http://deanofstudents.rutgers....
Santa Clara University is telling students to call 911 over "bias incidents".
http://www.scu.edu/provost/div...
Idiot progressive says that computers can be racist as well:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sci...
Idiot progressive accuses people of being racist when in fact the stupid bitch confuses her own search history for racist topics suggested by twitter. The cow was LOOKING for racist stuff about herself... didn't find it apparently... then saw her search history and said "oh there's the racism I was trying to find"... Morons.
http://www.independent.co.uk/n...
You think this is hard, shithead? Easiest thing in the world. All I'm doing is walking outside and pointing at the Sun. Its right there. See it?
You're wrong.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Quote yourself and I'll do a postmortem on it.
As to your compliment about my knowledge of classical western philosophy. Thanks. Its good to occasionally get some recognition for one's knowledge and skills especially from people that don't like you.
It means more, no?
You were attempting to use that as a backhanded compliment but you don't give backhanded compliments to people that didn't have something going on. So thanks.
Anyway, quote yourself and we'll vivisect this beast and I'll show you where the tumors are... or admit I was in error and apologize to you. Have I ever apologized to you? I don't remember. I do it quite freely when I'm found in error. It tends to freak people out that are arguing with me because I hold my line so firmly... and then instantly give way when I'm shown to be in error.
The secret ingredient is integrity. Once you understand that, I become a less mysterious beast. I know you won't accept that at this juncture... you're too determined to prove I'm a hell hound spawned from the abyss at this point. I've gotten the respect from a long list of people that started out not liking me. We'll see. You may be the next one. ;-D