I know a lot of geek guys (my core group of friends when I was younger), and people on the autism spectrum, and just like most people, there were a lot of good people, and a few not so good ones. But what I really think we need to avoid @AnonyMouse is conflating “being a bigoted asshole” with “has aspergers”, which is not true at all.
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Sure. To us a US political example, I don’t think Ted Cruz = Rand Paul = Jeb Bush = Scott Walker, but when they decide to get together and work as a party then it is ok for the rest of us to group them together. How is that not the case with these puppy folks?
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Not sure why you are apologizing or crying umbrage about Cory’s post. The differences you highlight sound like the kind of things bigots/racists say in public or polite company versus the kind of thing bigots/racists say among their own group. Just my take on it.
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I’ve finished it. The real main character is Heinlein’s peritonitis. Way too long, extremely disquieting ending. I don’t want to spoil anything but income inequality is a stronger theme than body / gender change, especially when the reader tries to imagine the situation from outside the protagonist’s perspective. More weird and less fun and imaginative compared to general Heinlein. Might make a decent Cronenberg movie.
I think some of the Lazarus Long / “By his own Bootstraps” stuff involved gender reassignment, but I have a hard time taking in all of that storyline. I loved The Cat who Walks through Walls and to Sail Beyond the Sunset, but Time Enough for Love is just collecting dust on my shelf, I can’t really get through more than 40 pages.
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Agreed. Reductionism of that sort is always best avoided. I mean, I think by making such claims, @AnonyMouse (unintentionally, I hope) only manages to reinforce the world view of this fringe contingent of assholes led by Beale and his ilk, to some extent - that their view point is just “common sense” wisdom and widely shared by some silent majority within fandom/gaming/sci-fi/fantasy communities, that they are a beleaguered minority, fighting for the rights of a group of nerds and outsiders being attacked by a bunch of social justice warriors, out to take their toys. Nothing could be further from the truth of course.
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Banks is pretty late, though (…erm, if you see what I mean 
). Which book is it that has the Culturite who’s opted for agendered identity? Surface Detail? That was only a few years ago.
Otherwise, I agree that the “evil deviant” isn’t a very attractive subject to talk about. Or maybe for another thread…
More opportunity to boycott him now we know who he is and what he does, though.
I was being a bit facetious and really un-pc which was wrong of me. What I should have said was that Geek culture seems capable of mobilising fucking tsunamis of arseholes at the drop of a hat. There is certainly something going on. I suspect that only people who have developed truly deep-seated inferiority complexes are capable of harbouring the illusion of feminist/ethnic/communist/illuminati/reptilian conspiracies to the degree that they will attempt to act against them.
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Yeah, you’re right, and although I think there is some correllation between Aspergers and authoritarian/libertarian tendencies (and I do use that un-sarcastically since there is an inherent irony in the modern usage of ‘libertarian’), It was wrong and similarly bigoted for me to write as I did.
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There is the ending of player of games. But it’s not necessarily an attractive option.
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I think you were being reductive, actually. But thanks for acknowledging that… 
I agree with this, actually. This seems a vocal minority to me. Plus, I’d argue there is probably a reason why these debates are getting so very toxic - I think the modern, secular world, that sci-fi and fantasy have come to represent ways of thinking about both the past and the future, a space that was once pretty much the domain of religion/philosophy. Hence, they carry a lot of weight for many people, and hence, changes can feel like a threat. Plus, genre fiction has gotten incredibly politically powerful, as they have become more welcome in the mainstream media and proven to be economic powerhouses in the culture industries. It really shouldn’t surprise us then that they now cause such a powerful debate and that some people are willing to go to extremes to “protect” their perceived turf.
I also think that there is probably some ideas about aspergers that assume they are all intellectually superior (or maybe even more highly evolved), and lots of these assholes associate intelligence with overall superiority in general. They claim aspergers in order to justify their bad behavior. I’d guess that the people who link actively authoritarianism and aspergers (in, their mind, in a positive way - like the elites should rule for the betterment of all kind of way) likely claim that status for themselves to justify their authoritarianism?
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Whoah, what? Let me make my position clear, shall I?
Sad Puppies are idiots - if for no other reason (and I think there are in fact several) than they are attempting to ‘hark back’ to a time in SF that never really existed.
Rabid Puppies are arseholes. They are basically the reason I hold my position on gun control, and yet bizarrely their continued existence is also the one thing that might change my mind.
Because they’re working as two separate ‘parties’ with two separate slates, for a start!
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Fair enough, but the sad puppies are aligning themselves with the rabid puppies, are they not? In the name of expediency, maybe? I also don’t see why we need to give the sad puppies a pass for “being idiots”. I’d say they still see themselves as fighting the good fight against changes to what is suposedly “their” community… They still see women and people of color who talk about their experiences via sci-fi and fantasy as some sort of negative for genre fiction. Why should we just let that slide, even if they aren’t rabid racists or sexists?
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I suspect it’s more that it’s a convenient excuse for social ineptitude.
Maybe, maybe not. But at some point aligning with authoritarianism needs to be pointed out as bad news, if not downright dangerous. What can possibly be said to justify this?
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I don’t know, it seems more like here is your Texas GOP and here is your New York GOP. Same party, different slates and spins.
Sad Puppies, Rabid Puppies, Happy Puppies, Blue Puppies. All still puppies. Why else associate with the same basic logo and name?
And the basic point that you keep dodging: What is misleading in the post summary? Be specific and explain your response like you are talking to a five year old.
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The two groups of people you describe here and further up sound exactly the same to me. One group keeps the thoughts to themselves and the other doesn’t. The thoughts are the same though.
Essentially, the difference between the two groups is about 6 pints.
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OK, made my thread about
Transgenderism in Speculative Fiction
if you want a more focused thread than this one, or even a place to move comments to. If you want to preempt my thoughts with manifestos of your own, now’s your chance.
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I’m not arguing that anyone should get out of jail free on this - but holding them to account for the actions of others is going to lose us any traction and reinforce existing grievances (“mean liberal feminazis blamed me for Vox Day’s right-wing militancy but I’m just a nice guy…”), possibly driving their supporters to the more extreme camp.
That is, I think it’s worth engaging them, but we can only do so by attacking the position that they have taken rather than savaging the position we think they’ve come from, if that makes sense.
My understanding was that the Rabids were initially supporting, and then spinning off from and subverting, the Sad’s - perhaps I’m mistaken in that.
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I mean all of the evils of the Bush administration may have been Cheney’s doing, so you let Bush off for bringing Cheney into the mix? There is definitely shared responsibility and explicit association.
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