That said, I regard Trump and what he is doing currently with a sullen lack of surprise. The Beige Dictatorship has a disastrous failure mode and that is electing the Devil himself because, whatever else, at least he isn't beige.
(He's orange, it turns out.)
Being told (and shown!) that there is no choice, no alternative, and no way out repeatedly tends to breed an ornery sort of resistance that doesn't mind cutting its nose to spite its face.
I'll be honest, I thought it'd take a bit longer than this, but it was always inevitable. Oligarchic crony capitalism breeds an equally vile response using as fuel the despair of people who suddenly realize that, while they weren't looking, they stopped being people and became human resources.
]]>I find I much prefer the position of Our Gracious Host.
]]>But the UK is screwed. You'd expect the people to rebel against the EU to be on the periphery, driven feral by austerity and Brussels overreach. Not the people who were likely the most helped by the EU. (Well... after Germany, arguably).
The very best case scenario right now (ignoring the democracy-ignoring, riot-inspiring approach of just not honoring the referendum results) is for the UK to trade the cushy sweetheart deals that it used to have with the EU for much, much worse ones. Something nice and invasive like what the periphery deals with.
The worst case scenario is unthinkable. I don't think a developed country has had a real hunger problem since... WWII? The Tories don't seem like the sort to extend benefits to ensure everyone can get to eat, quite the opposite in fact, so what is the future? UN food drops?
]]>It all depends, of course, if the Stars Are Right and what that means in a interstellar context. I mean, what is the backstory of this battle? A huge stone city is found on Holy Terra, it is immediately declared HERESY (few things aren't) and put to the torch (plasma torch, to be specific). The huge slumbering form, however, is loaded into a ship and begins transport to some suitably unimportant world where it can be examined and the planet can be Exterminatus'd if needed.
By sheerest accident, that planet is far enough ahead in the Milky Way, spinwise, that when it gets there, the stars turn out to be Right and Cthulhu CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN's his way out of the inadequate confinement, sups heartily on some Adeptus Astartes, and gets going—Cthulhu II: The Revengening, tagline: Time To Feed The Shoggoth. Soon to be in theaters near you, whether you want it to be or not.
:)
]]>I mean, I've heard people say sexist things. I've even read a few online comments[1] that were appallingly misogynistic. But I've never heard someone so much as suggest that they care about the gender of the author one whit[2]. I suspect that all book readers who'd cop to it, even under the conditions of absolute anonymity, wouldn't be much more than a drop in the bucket. Or have I lived a strangely sheltered life?
I can only presume it is an unconscious bias, and the thing about being told to correct your unconscious biases is that it, at best, produces bewilderment. I don't know how you fix unconscious biases[3] and I've not heard any suggestions either.
I mean, maybe you could do it crudely? What's the disparity? Could you simply commit to buying X hard-SF books by women each year and thus offset the average per-reader bias? Do women readers need to do the same/similar? Has anyone checked? I mean it wouldn't be doing much, but it would be doing something.
Also: What about those female authors who succeed? Ann Leckie writes hard-ish SF[4] and she's certainly not hurting for visibility and her name is prominent on her book covers. What's different in her case? I'm not saying that Leckie's case[5] makes it all Officially Better. I'm just curious if it can be replicated indefinitely.
[1] Of the actual-sentences-with-discoverable-meaning sort. I'm not counting the walls of ALLCAPs swearing.
[2] Except those who suggest that they/we should read more female authors.
[3] Except by denying yourself/people the information they need for the bias to manifest itself. But Charlie says that's entirely impossible, so there's that gone.
[4] Well, okay, it's really Banksian space opera, but that's not exactly a genre in which there's an overwhelming female presence. Yet, at any rate.
[5] Or Le Guin's. Or Cherryh's? Or &c.
I will however offer an explanation of the nice man who was wondering where all the women writers were in a strangely counterfactual way: I think that the reason that phenomenon is quite so prevalent is that honest inquiries for information are being swamped by signaling. The signal is, roughly: I DO CARE ABOUT WOMEN IN SF PLEASE DON'T STAB ME[1], or in cases of less nice people, I DO CARE ABOUT WOMEN IN SF, GIVE ME A COOKIE. Obviously, I may not be correct in this instance, but I think the explanation stands in general.
[1] Note just how annoyed our gracious host is with the merest hint of dissent on this topic. I'm not saying he shouldn't be annoyed. I'm just saying that no matter how justified the annoyance is, it is disquieting and may prompt people to transmit frantic DO NOT STAB signals.
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