Commentary

Chinese writers get it from both sides

This entry was posted in Censorship Commentary and tagged censorship China on by

Chinese writers have to reckon not only with their own government but with the US government. This post deals with events from 2020, but they relate to the issues of the upcoming Chengdu Worldcon and its guest of honor.

In 2020, Netflix announced plans for a series based on Cixin Liu’s The Three-Body Problem and its sequels. As far as I can tell (my Netflix subscription is currently inactive), it’s still in the works. Earlier, five U.S. senators pressured Netflix to drop it. Their reason was some remarks which the author had made in a New Yorker interview. When asked about the Chinese government’s treatment of the Uyghurs, he said, “If anything, the government is helping their economy and trying to lift them out of poverty. If you were to loosen up the country a bit, the consequences would be terrifying.”Cover, The Three-Body Problem

The notion of “lifting people out of poverty” by putting them into brutal concentration camps is, of course, outrageous. We have to consider Cixin’s position, though. If he had spoken against the Chinese government’s treatment of the Uyghurs, his writing career would have promptly ended, and he might have suffered worse consequences. The Chinese government’s recent threats against anyone who criticizes it at the Olympics have reminded us of that. Also, he’s doubtless been fed steady misinformation by the censored Chinese media.
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The silence on the Chengdu Worldcon 2

This entry was posted in Censorship Commentary and tagged China conventions science fiction on by

The lack of pushback against the 2023 Worldcon in Chengdu is disturbing. Boycotting the 2022 China Olympics is one of the few things Democrats and Republicans agree on. It should be obvious that a science fiction con, which is supposed to be about open discussion and speculation, can’t function under a government that monitors and censors ideas as pervasively as China does. Fans should find it repugnant to give any support to a government that persecutes minorities and violates human rights on a massive scale. Yet we’ve seen hardly any protests.

I’ve been looking for videos addressing these points to add to my YouTube playlist for boycotting Chengdu. So far I haven’t found any from fannish sources. If you know of any that are good enough to add to the list, please let me know in a comment.
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China buys 2023 Worldcon 1

This entry was posted in Commentary News and tagged conventions science fiction on by

The 2023 World Science Fiction Convention will be in China, a country notorious for suppressing dissent, persecuting minorities, restricting communication, and monitoring its citizens. Worldcon sites are selected among bidders by members of an earlier Worldcon, as just happened at Discon. It appears that the selection was the result of a large number of votes sent in from China from people who purchased supporting memberships. In other words, China bought the Worldcon.

Science fiction is the realm of speculation, exploration of ideas, and examination of alternatives. The idea of a Worldcon in such a repressive nation is absurd. Hopefully few fans in free countries will have any interest in this charade, and they’ll sit it out.
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Writers threatened with $300K fines

This entry was posted in Commentary News and tagged censorship liberty Russia on by

According to an article by Natylie Baldwin on antiwar.com, the United States Treasury Department has threatened writers with fines of more than $300,000 if they write for the Strategic Culture Foundation, a Russia-based online journal.

The writers, Daniel Lazare and Michael Averko, reportedly got letters from the Treasury Department, delivered by the FBI, claiming they were in violation of sanctions against SCF and could be subject to a “civil monetary penalty of up to the greater of $311,562 or twice the value of the underlying transaction.” They say that other writers have received similar letters.
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Some thoughts on J. K. Rowling 2

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged books cancel culture Rowling on by

This post may cost me some people whom I mistook for friends. If that happens, it’s painful, but there’s no point in living with an illusion. It’s more important to point out unjust positions within your circles than with those outside, because you have a much better chance of having an effect. The danger when you speak up is that the people in your circles may turn on you, but I expect the number of people who do that to me will be small and won’t include anyone I truly value.

J. K. Rowling has been the target of extreme hostility from quite a number of people, including some within my circles. They don’t give reasons; they just spit. Sometimes they call her “transphobic,” but that’s a three-syllable word and is apt to promote a second of thought while saying it. The word “terf” is much easier just to spew (or should that be S.P.E.W.?).
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Use the right statistic

This entry was posted in Commentary Writing and tagged statistics writing on by

Mark Twain talked about “lies, damned lies, and statistics.” Lying with statistics isn’t always intentional; sometimes a writer doesn’t understand their meaning or applicability.

Recently I saw a news article on the COVID-19 infection rate in northern New Hampshire. It reported a higher positivity rate than in previous weeks. That doesn’t tell us anything about whether infections are increasing or decreasing, though. If the positivity rate goes up, it could mean one of several things:

  1. More people are infected.
  2. More of the people who are infected are getting tested.
  3. Fewer people who aren’t infected are getting tested.

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Abusing the nominative 2

This entry was posted in Commentary Writing and tagged grammar writing on by

Alexander James Adams has a song which is quite nice yet makes me grate my teeth. Its refrain is “There’s only the music between you and I.” An occasional grammatical violation in a song is OK, but one that occurs in every verse is painful. There are plenty of good rhymes for “me.”

When a pronoun follows a preposition, it has to be in the accusative case, also called the objective case. “With me.” “To them.” “Behind her.” The favorite grammatical error of snobs is to use the nominative case instead.
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The black swan fallacy

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged logic research on by

A while ago I ran into a report of an alleged side effect of the COVID-19 vaccine. It was a “this happened to my cousin” story, so it’s low on credibility. Some news outlets, though, claimed it couldn’t be true because there was no previous report of this effect.

That’s not a valid refutation. The vaccines are fairly new, and it’s plausible that a few people could have side effects that weren’t previously recorded. The media argument amounted to “We never heard of it before, so it couldn’t have happened.”
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Don’t treat your readers like children

This entry was posted in Commentary Writing and tagged bowdlerization writing on by

In an alarming development, the US National Archives has slapped warnings of “harmful language” on the United States Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence. The source makes it especially disturbing; archivists should stand strongly against scaring people off from important documents.

Update: According to some sources, the National Archives stuck this warning label on all the documents in its online catalog, which is sloppy and makes the warning useless. As an analogy, if you rate all movies R, you might as well rate none of them R.
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Disagreement isn’t refutation

This entry was posted in Commentary Writing and tagged logic research writing on by

Websites with an agenda to promote will claim that someone has “refuted” a claim when all the person has done is express a contrary view, with or without supporting evidence.

Refuting a claim or argument means showing that it’s invalid. It doesn’t require proving that the contrary position is true, but it requires thoroughly knocking the props out from under a claim. Here are some ways to refute an assertion:
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