Why do you make me hurt you?

[daveon]

Quote of yesterday, for me, was this on File770:

“I’m not a sociopath. As it happens, I’m actually unusually empathetic. I understand your pain. That’s why I gave you the opportunity to back down.”

That's Theodore Beale that is.  I am minded of an old school TV serial killer, or TV style domestic abuse or something.  "Why are you making me hurt you?  Why don't you just do as I say?"

I have been reading all the Hugo entries, even the Puppies, both Sad and Rabid, and actually, until that and some choice stuff he's repeated today about Poll Taxes and how he gave 'us' a chance to back down, I've had to conclude I have to vote no to any fiction category that has his fingerprints on it, and I have to say sorry to Kary English if I meet her about that.  OTOH she is up the for Campbell.

My father wasn't a very nice man and this is the sort of power game crap he'd pull at home after a bad day and after he was forced to retire on health grounds, when he didn't have a department at his beck and call at the Yard.  He mellowed as he aged and our relationship was much better by the time he died, but that took many many years of him learnng to live with himself and without the power that he used to have.  Mr Beale seems to crave that power and enjoys wielding it.  Sad really.

Anyway, novel category is easy - Three Body #1, Goblin Emperor #2, Anciliary Sword #3, No Award #4.  I am sad to say, I do not have any choice but to vote No Award #1 in the 3 other fiction categories.  Only 2 of the stories felt like they should be there, and as one of them was the kind of 'message' fiction the Puppies claim to hate, I'm a bit lost over what they stand for.

Fan Writer is equally easy, anybody prepared to put their head over the parapet to take on that other blight on the face of SF&F, Requres Hate, is good with me.

Best Fanzine?  No contest really :)

I'll be voting the Movie and 'TV' categories as if there wasn't a slate as I strongly suspect the slate effect is minimal in those because they do largely represent what people liked.  I'm annoyed Predestination wasn't in the Movies - Heinlein people, your BFF?  No?  Too much icky cross-gender stuff?  Sad.

Other observations from a few days of trying to avoid writing support docs (yes, the stuff they don't tell you in CEO school)...

1. The Puppy supporters/sock puppets/sealions and so forth work from the same kind of talking points memos as does the American right.  Today's word to use is 'Poll Tax'


2. If I were Beale, and I get a lot of No Awards this year, I'll make damn sure my slate looks like a normal reading list full of the stuff he claims to hate, just to see if people will spit stuff they would otherwise like, because that way it can be about him!


3. 'Slate' is not a complicated word in this context nor is 'breaking the spirit of the law' - watching the 'wahhh, we didn't break the rules why are you being mean to us?' stuff is stomach churning


4. Having read, or tried to read, most of the short fiction - we have a SERIOUS mismatch in taste and expectation going on.  Flow? Read like a bad Dragonlance rip off of somebodies clever D&D scenario.  A couple started out well and then went down hill really fast - what happened to Hook and Back fill anyway?  Turncoat?  Less said the better.  Neal Asher and Iain Banks could teach him a thing or two about writing AI battleships.

And, finally, not all Puppies are the same, there are a few commentators on File770 who genuinely didn't realize they were being played and feel bad about it now.  To them I say this, never mind, vote for what you like, join in, and be careful of what you see promoted.

Comments

[yamamanama.livejournal.com]

Can Vox say anything without coming off as a shitbag of the highest order?

[daveon.livejournal.com]

Hard to say at this stage. It does feel like he's created a parody of a mustache twirling villain and is now playing him for laughs.

It is getting harder and harder to take him all that seriously. Especially when he explains how HUGE he's going to be in a few years...

[soon_lee]

You've been astoundingly patient trying to engage with some of the commenters on File770.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

As I said, it beats writing support documentation :)

But it is interesting watching the pathology of this from some of the more obvious trolls.

- Make statement
- Statement is refuted
- Make variant on statement
- People ask for evidence
- Repeat statement in slightly different way
- Go quiet

Rinse repeat.

[a-cubed.livejournal.com]

At base, this is all about a tantrum that Larry Correia had when he lost (but wasn't voted below No Award) in the Campbell. He kept up that tantrum for a couple of years and then drew Vox Day into it by managing to get him onto the list of finalists for best editor. After Day was quite reasonably voted below No Award in that category, he had a similar tantrum himself. I'm fairly sure these guys really are deluded and not cyncial about what they're doing. All the evidence that shows that they're wrong about sekret cabals and SJW conspiracies can't convince them that they were wrong, because that would require them to admit that they've behaved abominably and they just aren't the sort of people able to accept that they've made any mistakes. Never imagine that you're going to persuade them to change their minds. On the other hand a modest level of polite, factual engagement help a great deal in avoiding more reasonable people from being drawn into their skewed worldview.
grrm's posts about this were wonderful in that vein. He clearly demolished the claims that SPs and RPs made and brought sensible light into the discussion to help those who can and will see reality to do so.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

I guess that "sociopath" isn't the technically correct term anymore; however, it would seem to me that a sociopath would by his very nature be unable to recognize the pathology he exhibits. By his own internal definition, he is "normal" and everyone else is a "cardboard cutout," or as I put it, a "non-player character."

The best thing we can do is to publicize his words so that people can see what sort of person managed to manipulate a few hundred people who I do not think all meant to be bad actors and are only now realizing that they were fighting against a conspiracy that never existed. The biggest harm done to the Hugos in the medium term is that in self-defense we may see the "slates" that they claim existed start actually existing, at least next year before any significant counter-measures to defeat organized bloc voting can be brought to bear.

I still think some of my "non-destructive" ideas (that don't require a constitutional amendment and thus I'm prepared to talk about because I wouldn't need to preside over the amendment debate this year) are good, but they've been rejected as too revolutionary or too much work for the administrator. While I have been an Admin, the last time was 2002 and in none of the three cases did I have to do the real heavy lifting. (Other than literally, when my wife and I humped the trophies up to the top floor of the San Jose Civic Auditorium and Lisa assembled them herself, then guarded them in an un-air-conditioned room while I hunted up someone who had the keys so we could lock them away.)

[daveon.livejournal.com]

I think I've continued to post because I want people to see the other side....

It feels most like hostage taking really, especially phrasing like that and I'll be damned if I will back down from common bullies.