Striving For Diversity
And so you must be excluded:
It means they’re holding you responsible for their out-of-control feelings and they’re hoping you’re tolerant and kind enough to let them call you intolerant and unkind.
It’s a pathetic power move from life’s losers meant to turn your own morals against you.
It’s one of the…
— Porkulence (@Porkulence) June 25, 2025
Update, via the comments:
It must be quite strange to inhabit a milieu in which the normal meanings of words are either ignored or inverted. By people who aspire to be professional writers. Communicators of ideas.
Such that safety translates as a compulsory and intensely neurotic following of very narrow ideological fashion.
A social environment in which celebrating diversity means pointedly and gleefully excluding anyone we suspect of possibly have differing opinions on something or other, whether expressed or not, and doing so in ways that, to others, those less progressive, seem petty and weird.
Something along those lines.
Consider this an open thread. Share ye links and bicker.
From the replies:
It must be quite strange to inhabit a milieu in which the normal meanings of words are either ignored or inverted. By people who aspire to be professional writers. Communicators of ideas.
Such that safety translates as a compulsory and intensely neurotic following of very narrow ideological fashion.
A social environment in which celebrating diversity means pointedly and gleefully excluding anyone we suspect of possibly have differing opinions on something or other, whether expressed or not, and doing so in ways that, to others, those less progressive, seem petty and weird.
Something along those lines.
And as someone quips in the replies,
Presumably, in this context, of a science fiction writing community, safety would translate as continual flattery.
Remember the rule. Steer clear of the brightly colored animals.
[ Post updated. ]
Progressives in a nutshell.
So many aspirations, so few accomplishments.
It’s a Cluster B manipulation.
They don’t actually feel unsafe. They just don’t want you around, so they use a term that implies you’re the aggressor and they’re the victim.
“I’m such a sensitive princess that I can feel a pea under any number of mattresses.”
They don’t feel unsafe. They’re just cowards who want to bully people.
It’s always word games.
The enthusiasm for which does not inspire great trust.
Even if the claims of feeling “unsafe” are to be taken at face value, which seems a little generous, those claims do suggest a strange and impossibly high-maintenance worldview.
I mean, pretty much every day I am surrounded by, and interact with, people whose opinions on any number of things almost certainly differ from my own, some antithetically. This unremarkable fact does not result in any discernible feelings of agitation or terror.
But hey, maybe that’s just me.
And on the other hand, people generally avoid conflict. So the Cluster Bs “win” because their targets don’t call them out on it.
I have discovered that I have a wonderous super power, one that just increases in power day-by-day: I’m getting older. Which means I have fewer and fewer fucks left to give. So I either don’t care what idiots like this think or I let them know. And feel no guilt or otherwise about doing so.
I can’t believe anyone interested in writing would be stupid enough to think they can create in this type of strait jacket.
And they like it.
I suppose the claims of feeling unsafe might at least be comprehensible, if not remotely edifying, if you translate them as something like, “I fear you may disabuse me of my cherished illusions.” Or, “I fear you may make my pretensions more noticeable and therefore difficult to sustain.”
That kind of thing.
If such a situation were only limited to a milieu…
Exactly. So who, if anyone, in such a situation is more likely to be truly the one legitimately feeling anything approaching unsafe?
If you’ll forgive a wildly OT comment…
Re: the Star Trek discussion a few threads back, I ran across this comment:
(I don’t know if it’s true or not, as I have no involvement with fans and conventions.)
There has always been a significant Ministry of Truth element in the science fiction “community”, all the way back to the 1930’s. And that includes writers and editors.
Thus: Yet another BLM activist turns out to be depraved, sadistic abuser.
Is today’s word ‘crybully’?
IME online writing groups like that one mainly serve as a kind of pyramid scheme used by a core clique to get people to read their work, while reading very little of the work written produced by members outside that clique. They’re ultimately marketing tools for those few people.
Looking at the wiki page for that writing group I only recognise the name of one of the “notable” members, despite being an avid fan of sci-fi and fantasy, and he was only the translator for someone else’s work.
Further clicking on the names suggests they’re part of the same group exposed by the sad puppies Hugo Award scandal. They’re a clique who mainly give each other awards, shutting out authors with higher sales, but whose politics they disagree with.
Another notable point from skimming all those pages and links is that they never give sales or readership figures for any of their work. They brag about the awards but I can’t tell if they have many actual readers.
It’s perhaps worth noting the signature vagueness of the accusation. Some non-specific wickedness, seemingly by association, that allegedly induces gasps and fainting. It’s all oddly nebulous.
Among people of good faith, it is, I believe, customary to specify the “code of conduct” that has been breached, and the specific action that has done so. That neither is forthcoming – no specific rule, no specific action – doesn’t reflect well on those making the accusation.
Yet this vagueness is remarkably common.
I think I see the problem…
The publishing world since the end of WWII. Likely even before that.
Murder rate by state? Next do it by county and by municipality. Betcha the correlation will increase further.
Well, quite.
The failure of the so-called criminal justice system: Considering the offense and his criminal history, 43 months doesn’t sound like “significant amount of time in custody”. Should be 43 minutes in a garotte.
Regarding the justice of executing criminals by torture….
Adding extra chillies and cheese to a store-bought pizza counts as cooking, right?
Adding cheese to anything counts as cooking.
Of course. In college I used to regard boxed Kraft Macaroni and Cheese as my canvas.
[ Shouts towards bathroom door. ]
SEE? THEY ALL AGREE WITH ME.
Careful – you may get loud and vigorous usage of the facilities in response…
How do they remain in their perches of power? Why are they accepted as arbiters of anything, given how petty and small they are?
Me, I’d do an end-run around them and start a parallel institution. Or at least try to get those people discredited and defanged. Trouble is, I’m not savvy when it comes to manipulation, so I would have a hard time outmaneuvering them.
Given these are those who can, and do, take offense at the most anodyne things, it’s not easy to discern what ideas they might be communicating.
Beyond ‘more Thorazine needed’ that is.
Scaphism seems fitting.
Hold that thought ’til Friday.
[ Resumes compiling of Ephemera. ]
Me, I’d do an end-run around them and start a parallel institution.
@dicentra Isn’t that what Sad Puppies tried to do? I don’t remember if they were successful, but I know someone tried to take on the Hugos.
[ Removes packaging, puts store-bought cherry pie in oven. ]
Cook, cook, cook.
[ Hides packaging, scatters flour and random utensils on kitchen work surface. ]
Aye, there’s the rub. You don’t get one without the other. So things build up and build up until eventually, if you’re lucky, you get Donald Trump. Or Elon Musk. Or Billy Martin (times three?). Or Ted Turner. Or Steve Spurrier. Or Kid Rock. Or…whatever. The kind of people who just don’t, or stopped, giving a F what other people think.
If you’re lucky.
Just a reminder that if any readers would like to enable extra commenting options – including @username mentions, comment editing, upvotes, and live notifications – you can scroll down to the black ‘Meta’ box at the very bottom of the page and click register.
It’s free and quite painless.
Work, work, work.
“justice of executing criminals by torture”
Criminals are human beings who commit crimes out of greed or fear.
These are worse than feral animals.