Chrononautic Log

September 19, 2006

And Jon Hansen wins the prize!*

Comments are now disabled.

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* May not be an actual prize.

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September 18, 2006

Some time in the next week or two, chrononaut.org and allstarstories.com are going to be moving servers. I’ve been meaning to upgrade my blogging software forever (maintaining MT-Blacklist gets old), and rather than try to upgrade and transfer all my MT stuff at once, I decided to take the lazy way out: just install WordPress and copy over the MT archives. You can see the staging area for the new site at http://www.discontent.com/log/. Comments welcome — for instance, on the theme, which is really just the WordPress default theme with some new images and some CSS hacks. The URL for the blog won’t change, and any permalinks to old posts should still work.

Anyhow, at some point before the move I’ll be shutting comments off here so I can copy the archives over. If you want to get a last word in for posterity on any of the past three and a half years’ slapfights, this may be your last chance. :)

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September 15, 2006

There’s a story that A. Lawrence Lowell, the president of Harvard in the 1920’s, wanted to impose a Jew quota because “Jews cheat.” When someone pointed out that non-Jews also cheat, Lowell replied: “You’re changing the subject. We’re talking about Jews.” Likewise, when one asks the strong-AI skeptic how a grayish-white clump of meat can think, the response often boils down to: “You’re changing the subject. We’re talking about computers.”

— Scott Aaronson, “Alan Turing, Moralist”

 

If you want to know why Turing is such a hero of mine (besides his invention of the Turing machine, his role in winning World War II, and so on), the second passage above contains the answer. Let others debate whether a robotic child would have “qualia” or “aboutness” — Turing is worried that the other kids would make fun of it at school.

(Ibid.)

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September 11, 2006

Fascinating (if you’re fascinated by this sort of thing) discussion of the future of massively multiplayer online gaming over at someplaced called F13.net.

Raph: Yeah, NPCs in a game like WoW clearly deserve the name quest dispensers . . .

Yoru: Whereas NPCs in pen and paper games are kind of central . . .

Raph: Yeah, in WoW, they’re quest dispensers except they’re shaped like meat. Rather than shaped like a terminal.

(Courtesy of Bruce Sterling.)

Also of interest: “Do Levels Suck?” by Raph Koster (the “Raph” in the exchange above, and author of A Theory of Fun for Game Design), which among other things does a pretty good job of convincing me I’ve had most of the fun in World of Warcraft that I’m ever going to have.

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Update: See also “What are the lessons of MMORPGs today?” For instance:

• You never, ever, ever change jobs. If you want to, you probably need to die.
• There is always a demand for couriers and assassins.
• Killing is the only real way to gain people’s admiration.
• If you don’t keep up with the Joneses, you will never see them again. In fact, if you don’t keep up with your friends, you will never see them again either.

As Raph says, it may seem like a joke, but it’s actually a lament.

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September 6, 2006

Apologies to anyone who’s been gleefully celebrating the demise of my website (I'm talking to you, Skip!), but it was only a billing mix-up.

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September 5, 2006

It’s a long time since I posted any pictures, and I know not all y’all are into the minutiae of scientifictional politics. Plus, I now have visitors in town, and have therefore actually been going places and seeing things worth taking pictures of.

Figure 1. Preparation for guests: living room, empty, but livable.

Figure 1. Sunday morning: living room, being lived in.

More pictures after the cut.

(Continued)

Comments (9)

September 3, 2006

. . . not necessarily in that order.

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Update (Sun. 9/3) Y’all who posted your original comments in indisputably public places, if any of you would prefer not to have any more attention drawn to them, I can take those down too.

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Just so y’all know, I’m on Central European Time and I’ll be going to sleep in short order, so while, as previously noted, I’m happy to take quotes down at the original poster’s request, this will probably not happen instantly.

Update (Sat. 9/2): Okay, it’s 12:30AM CET (3:30PM Pacific time); I really am going to sleep now. (Don’t be surprised if I don’t have time tomorrow to read every flame you leave this [North American] evening. But I’ll do my best.)

A quick roundup of some of the discussion arising from the recent unpleasantness, divided into three categories:

• Typical
• Depressing
• Encouraging

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Updated: Fixed internal links, added second post from Bear.

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Updated: Added context at Ms. Datlow’s request.

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Updated: Removed Beth Bernobich quote at her request, and added a pointer to the good work she and Jim Hines are doing at bellwether_talk.

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Updated: Removed Raymond E. Feist quote at his request.

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Updated: Removed William Sanders quote at his request.

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Updated: Removed Vera Nazarian quote at her request.

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Updated: Removed Jane Yolen quote at her request.

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Updated: Added link from Shalanna Collins quote to her comments below.

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Updated: Removed Jack Skillingstead quote at his request.

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Updated: Removed Harry Turtledove quote at his request.

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Note: I’ve made public, here, excerpts from several posts from what is technically a private newsgroup, albeit one open to hundreds if not thousands of readers. I didn’t do this lightly. If anyone I’ve quoted would prefer not to stand behind those words in public I will be happy to remove them. Likewise, if my quotation misrepresents what you said, I apologize, and will be happy to fix it if you let me know.

Those of you who think something should be done about this may be interested to know that my access to the SFWA forums has been suspended.

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Typical:

• William Sanders:

  Text removed at original poster’s request.

• Shalanna Collins:

  I think I know what a "GROPE" would look like, and I didn't SEE any naughty patting, touching, squeezing (oops, invoking the Journey song there for a moment.) Nevertheless, a very contrite apology was publicly posted all over the net. ... This was just a momentary tweak, not assault or murder or what-have-you, for goodness' sake. I don't condone sexism or hassling women/men by touching them, but seriously, this isn't some big ponderous Sin.

  (Ellison forums, 2006/08/31)

  Ed.: Ms. Collins doesn’t condone sexism or hassling women/men by touching them — except, apparently, when it’s perpetrated by a famous author. She also seems to be somewhat confused about the meaning of “contrite,” and possibly “apology.”

  Update: Ms. Collins has commented here.

Depressing:

• Beth Bernobich

  Text removed at original poster’s request. I didn’t mean to imply that I thought Beth approved, at all, of what Harlan did, and I’m sorry I gave that impression. I simply found one parenthetical remark she made to be deeply depressing. Beth is on the side of the angels, as you can see at the bellwether_talk LJ community she and Jim Hines have set up to discuss the problem of sexism in the SF community.

• Raymond E. Feist

  Text removed at original poster’s request.

• Vera Nazarian

  Text removed at original poster’s request.

• Ellen Datlow (Updated)

  I was offline for a day or two after the con and then when I got back I discovered this whole brouhaha over Harlan's baby schtick -and that's what it was. A schtick of Harlan acting like a baby. Thus, he went up to the mike when Connie called him up -- he put the mike (a round one) into his mouth, swallowing it like a lollipop, Connie took it gently out of his mouth and wiped it off. He gurgled -- like a baby -- and then grabbed her breast like a baby and she smacked his hand off. A few seconds later she kissed him.... Cmon people. Please put this into perspective. It was NOT sexual assault. It was a joke/schtick gone a bit over the top. I was not offended as a woman watching this. I thought it was silly (but yes, I admit I personally thought the schtick funny). I also know that Connie and Harlan have a history of ribbing each other. I've seen it in the past. So please keep the incident in context and calm down.

  (Ellison forums, 2006/08/30)

  Ed.: Ellen, you grew up with these people. You’ve had time to get used to the way they behave and come to terms with it. We haven’t. And I don’t think we should have to.

• Jack Skillingstead:

  Text removed at original poster’s request.

Encouraging:

• Ed Champion:

  It’s one thing to goof around at a party — when the people know the other people involved and a little bit of this kind of nonsense sometimes occurs.

  But when a woman goes up on stage and cannot be respected as a writer, particularly a writer who’s as great as Connie Willis, when she must be groped and demeaned as a sex object in front of an audience, then the time has come to re-evaluate the merits of the organization that hosts the awards ceremony, as well as the has-been "legends" who go up to claim and present awards.

  (“Harlan Ellison: The Norman Mailer of Speculative Fiction,” 2006/08/28)

• Gavin Grant:

  Worldcon: sorry, the eejit has put you on the spot and a public statement is needed.

  What’s up with these dirty old men? They’re taking all the fun out of being in the genre and not inspiring anyone with anything but horror and the urge to vomit and throw out their books.

  (“Harlan Ellison: eejit,” 2006/08/28)

• Alan DeNiro:

  It makes me wonder — how must a woman just entering the field feel about this? Younger female readers? What could they possibly think about this? Could they possiblly think anything good about SF/F? As a field? A community?

  (“Down the Rabbit Hole,” 2006/08/28)

• Patrick Nielsen Hayden:

  Harlan Ellison groping Connie Willis on stage at the Hugos wasn't funny and it wasn't okay. ... [T]he basic message of Ellison's tit-grab is this: "Remember, you may think you have standing, status, and normal, everyday adult dignity, but we can take it back at any time. ... You can be the most honored female writer in modern science fiction. We can still demean you, if we feel like it, and at random intervals, just to keep you in line, we will."

  It's not okay. It's not funny. It wasn't a blow against bourgeois pieties or political correctness. It was just pathetic and nasty and sad and most of us didn't want to watch it. It's another thing that's going to stop.

  (“LAcon IV,” 2006/08/28)

• Ben Rosenbaum:

  Here's the context: it seems that a lot of men — particularly, to hear women my age tell it, older, powerful men — in science fiction feel like women's bodies are fair game. Whether it's for a gag, a thrill, or a "sit down and shut the fuck up, bitch", this kind of thing goes on beyond the Hugo stage. A lot.

  As it does in the wider world. A friend of mine who attended the Hugos had just been tit-grabbed by a stranger riding by on a bicycle in the street outside the Hugos the night before. Just for a minute of fun, because she was a woman, he brought her to tears of rage. For her, you grabbing Connie — and Connie's first horrified reaction before she covered beautifully and went on with the show — was the same damn thing, and the message was: you're not safe anywhere.

  . . . Mind, I'm not worried about Connie. For one thing, Connie's no victim, and for another, that's between you and her.

  No, I'm talking about the atmosphere in science fiction. We applauded a sexual assault at the Hugos, and now the web is full of folks saying "what's the big deal? get over it". I don't think I need to tell you that that is fucked up.

  Ed.: At time of press, Mr. Rosenbaum’s open letter has as yet gone unanswered except by one Mr. Goldberg, whose plaintive “What more do you guys want?” is undermined by his less than perceptive “Harlan has apologized profusely.”

  (“What I Told Harlan Ellison,” 2006/08/28)

• Elizabeth Bear:

  It's not just the tit-grab. It's also poking Rachel in the stomach uninvited.

  When I say "This is so not okay," I mean the pattern of treating women as if their personal space is not sovereign.

  Rachel and Connie are both strong women, and more than capable of standing up to Harlan. They get to decide how they want to respond to a given incident directed at them. (And both seem to have.) But I think, as a community, we need to say "This type of behavior is beyond the pale and will not be tolerated."

  (LiveJournal comment, 2006/08/29)

• Zoë Selengut:

  ...for fuck's sake, this is not just another "being a jerk" incident. ... It's a whole universe away from mere snottiness, drama-queenage, or provocative whatever. This is disgustingly sexist behavior, and it is not okay to class rank sexism under the jerk umbrella, as if it's something we'd all do if we lacked social graces and let our id take control. Being a rude and abrasive person is one thing, and treating women's bodies like public property is another.... It drives me nuts to see this classed in the same category as other amusing Ellison anecdotes (I admit, I do find a lot of them amusing, or did.) It's not. the same. thing.

  (LiveJournal comment, 2006/08/29)

• Jane Yolen:

  Text removed at original poster’s request.

• Susan Marie Groppi:

  I think a lot of people might be misunderstanding the outrage here — it's not just about what happened to Connie at the Hugos. It's about what's been happening to women in this community for a long time now. Pretty much every woman I know has a story of being on the wrong end of exactly that kind of inappropriate behavior. Taken individually, each incident is just a thing you brush off and move past, in the aggregate they add up to a big goddamn mess.

  (LiveJournal comment, 2006/08/30)

• Harry Turtledove:

  Text removed at original poster’s request.

• Meghan McCarron:

  And will this be the only time we talk about behaviors like this? And will we just talk about the most visible, shocking examples, or will we dig down into why their is an environment in our genre and at our conventions where this seems acceptable? ... I've seen variations of 'dirty old man' thrown around a lot in these discussions, but when those dirty old men are gone, I'm not exactly confident that women in the genre will no longer be treated in ways designed to make them feel like objects.

  (“On Harlangate, briefly,” 2006/08/31)

• Elizabeth Bear:

  What we are witnessing is the dying convulsion of a certain kind of privilege. And as in any case where somebody is having an unfair advantage taken away, many of the ones who have come to rely on that advantage are pretty upset about it, and are going to be bitter about lost dominance.

  It may take about a hundred years to change society. But no matter how angry many of us are that men will still attempt to assert social and sexual dominance over women in a crude and obvious fashion, the fact of the matter is that a sea-change is underway. And every time somebody says "Hey, that is not okay," and other people back him or her up, we get a little closer to equality.

  (“What we are witnessing,” 2006/09/01)

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For my own part: This is just not cool. It’s not “not cool if” (as in, not cool if Connie wasn't in on the gag); it’s not “not cool because” (as in, not cool because Harlan has a history of bad behavior); it’s just fundamentally not cool.

And the fact that so many people have rushed to defend it, or minimize it, or attack the people who’ve called bullshit on it, says more about the unreconstructed state of our field than the original incident.

And that is what’s gotta change.

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September 2, 2006

As of today, my access to SFF.net has been suspended for wilful violation of the member policies. The administrators of SFF.net are, of course, entirely within their rights to do this (and, really, given that the policy is there, I would expect responsible administrators to do no less). I won’t say that I had the policy in front of me when I violated it, but I knew that if I posted those quotes something like this was a likely consequence.

As I said yesterday, I did not post those quotes lightly. This is not just another internet slapfight.

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