Jason Rennie of Sci Phi doesn’t withdraw from the Hugo Awards exactly…

Over at Brad Torgersen’s blog, the editor of Sci Phi Journal and Superversive blogger Jason Rennie announces he doesn’t particularly want a Hugo Award.

Do you know how much Vox cares about actually winning one of those cheap plastic rockets? Not at all would probably be overstating the case AFAICS. Heck, i’m on the ballot twice and I don’t really care about winning one either. Makes no difference to me. I don’t expect it to translate into subs for Sci Phi Journal and that is the only validation I care about. It might boost the profile of SuperversiveSF some and that is welcome but that will happen whether we win or not. https://bradrtorgersen.wordpress.com/2016/05/17/panel-how-to-protect-science-fiction-awards-from-bad-people/#comment-18397

Archive link

Shame really. Sci Phi Journal is actually not the worst thing in the wider Rabid campaign orbit. You can read their latest news here http://www.sciphijournal.com/news-15/

Odd, if he didn’t care about the awards, why is he staying on the ballot other than to make Vox happy?

17 thoughts on “Jason Rennie of Sci Phi doesn’t withdraw from the Hugo Awards exactly…

  1. Well that is faint praise.

    Please allow me to clarify as we had the discussion about withdrawing over at SuperversiveSF behind the scenes. I wont withdraw either nomination and it has absolutely nothing to do with Vox. We have fans who voted for both in good faith, I don’t know how many but quite a few people contacted both to say they voted for us long before anything was announced. I wont withdraw because that would be to betray them and to be brutally honest, the people who would cheer a withdrawal aren’t going to do anything for us other than spit on us anyway, so why would I bother trying to appease people who hate us? But if it really matters to you that we withdraw then pass the hat around and make me a large cash offer to withdraw so I can grow the two sites and reimburse the fans who voted for us in good faith for their wasted vote. You’ve got my email (It better have at least 6 digits before the decimal point and be in $US though).

    But ultimately I don’t care about winning a Rocket. I’m not going to because various fatheads on your side of the fence will declare the nomination tainted and simply no-award it so it is pointless to worry about it. So why not withdraw? Because withdrawing will cost my stuff going into the Hugo Packet and people who aren’t petulant children will be denied the chance to give it a read as part of that, and _that_ I do value.

    The late David Hartwell observed that a Hugo win doesn’t translate into sales any more, so actually winning the thing isn’t really worth anything is it.

    Plus, it is hilarious watching your side dance to Vox’s tune. I’ve told several of your camp how to make Vox get bored and go away and none of you clowns will listen. Which is just pricelessly funny and harder to do if i’m not on the ballot.

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    1. I vote in the Hugos. I’m an out and out lefty. I’ve been happy to point people to your magazine because why not? The victim mentality has become so deeply ingrained on the right that you seem incapable of considering your own actions against your own ethical standards.

      Seriously do you think say, Thomas Aquinas or Aristotle would say that the right way to judge the quality of their actions is in terms of who is on which side? It is your own integrity, your own viewpoint on what is right and wrong. Asking to be bribed to withdraw, even if in jest, really doesn’t ennoble your position. Instead you disparage the people working on the Hugos while expecting them to circulate your material.
      As for your offer to allow me to bribe you to withdraw – aside from the obvious ethical issues with it, you’ve left it a tad late. So you get to squat in a spot for an award you don’t want but ensuring that somebody else doesn’t get a chance.

      ‘so actually winning the thing isn’t really worth anything is it’

      Yet trying to wreck it IS worth something? Is that *really* what you want Sci Phi journal to stand for?

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      1. You can point people to my stuff but others wont.

        I wasn’t asking to be bribed. If you think it is worth me withdrawing then make it worth my while to withdraw. Asking someone to withdraw just because you don’t like who voted for them is what is the craven and ignoble thing to do. If you really think I should withdraw and betray the people who voted for me in good faith, then I think it is perfectly reasonable to expect to be compensated for that. They forked out money to vote for me in good faith, why should they have their vote stolen from them? If I can’t compensate them for that material loss why should I accommodate you? Why should I forsake the exposure of the Hugo Packet? You value my withdrawing then prove it and compensate me and those who vote me for the loss. But no, like every leftist everywhere ever, you expect something for nothing.

        I’m not disparaging the people organizing the award. I am disparaging the idiots who will burn the award down like a bunch of petulant children because you think it belongs to you.

        I’ve done nothing wrong, nobody who paid up and voted for me did anything wrong and there is no reason to disenfranchise them just because a bunch of petty children who think they own the award are annoyed about it.

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      2. No, I pointed out that given that you don’t seem to want the award and seem to have a very low opinion of the award, that it is odd that you are participating.
        It is like me turning up to a party and angrily standing in the way of the drinks table and telling everybody how bad the party is and how much I hate everybody at the party. Put aside all the Vox stuff, it makes no sense for me to be at the party. You seem to be saying that you demand the right to be unhappy about participating.

        ‘You value my withdrawing’ – as I pointed out the benefit of you withdrawing Sci Phi is that a different ‘zine that might have actually liked to have won would have got a chance to have a go (who also had people who voted for it who they would like to ‘enfranchise’) but that opportunity has passed because the ballot has been finalised. But you can make a grumpy statement about how shit the party is that you didn’t want to to go to, instead. Yay!

        So sorry Jason, no bribe to make you go away. If you want to make your magazine look like it stands for some sort of misanthropic party pooping that is your call. I just can’t imagine why you would want to do that. You make it sound like you think it will strike some blow against leftism – oops sorry but it wont.

        Also, have you actually stopped to consider *who* Vox is actually playing for fools. Bare in mind he really doesn’t give a shit about people like me.

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  2. Again, I don’t know what exactly you are struggling with,

    I’m not unhappy about participating, I’m indifferent to the prospect of winning because I know their are idiots organized against me who put politics before everything. I still value the exposure of being the packet. I don’t hate everybody at the party, i’m pretty happy with the list this year frankly.

    Nobody was disenfranchised by my inclusion. Don’t you understand how elections and voting work? Everybody got a vote and I was among the winners. But to turn down the nomination does directly discard the votes of people who voted for me in good faith.

    Again, nobody on my side organized to no-award everybody last year who they disagreed with politically, that was your lot, nobody on my side handed out wooden anuses at the award, that was your side. I think you might want to revisit who the misanthropes are.

    You complain I don’t regard the prospect of winning as having much value. Why would I? I’m not going to because your side has already made up its mind that the quality of works is irrelevant and that all that matters is politics. If it didn’t then how did “If you were a dinosaur my love” ever get nominated?

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    1. //Nobody was disenfranchised by my inclusion. Don’t you understand how elections and voting work?//

      I understand how they work – it was you who suggested that somehow you not being on the ballot would disenfranchise the people who voted for you.

      You are also now shifting your story as to why the award is worthless to you. Your earlier argument implied it was intrinsically worthless, your knew argument is a kind of sulky i-wont-win-anyway then a usual list of grievances about people being meanies.

      Is the quality of reasoning we can expect to find in a supposed PHILOSOPHY journal? Seriously?

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      1. Yeah i’m not sure you do. Having votes discarded because I withdraw will mean those who voted for SuperversiveSF and Sci Phi Journal will have votes that don’t count. That is what it means to be disenfranchised.

        Also, I’m not shifting anything. Nothing has intrinsic value, things only have value in so far as someone values them. This should be obvious unless you subscribe to nonsense like Marx’s Labour Theory of Value. But that is beside the point. The award is of next to no value based on an observation of the late David Hartwell. Winning a Hugo makes for a very small one off bump in sales with no lasting effect.

        There is nothing sulky about my argument. The fact that you need to claim I implied something just suggests you are reading your fantasies into what I wrote. Why don’t you just complete the exercise by calling me a racist for no apparent reason.

        I cared a little bit last year about the outcome until I saw the deliberately insulting mess that the whole thing became with the CHORF-holes and all the rest. This year I went in with no illusions what so ever, which is why it doesn’t matter to me.

        That it clearly annoys you that I don’t care about the outcome but remain on the ballot anyway is quite satisfying though. So thanks for that.

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      2. //Yeah i’m not sure you do. Having votes discarded because I withdraw will mean those who voted for SuperversiveSF and Sci Phi Journal will have votes that don’t count. That is what it means to be disenfranchised. //

        …and by that argument other works that might be on the ballot if it hadn’t have been for VD’s shenangigans are therefore ‘disenfranchised’. It works both ways.

        //There is nothing sulky about my argument. The fact that you need to claim I implied something just suggests you are reading your fantasies into what I wrote. Why don’t you just complete the exercise by calling me a racist for no apparent reason. //

        Well nothing sulky, aside from that very paragraph where you start complaining about insults that you imagine that people might throw at you.

        //I cared a little bit last year about the outcome until I saw the deliberately insulting mess that the whole thing became with the CHORF-holes and all the rest. //

        or that festivus style airing-of-grievances paragraph.

        //That it clearly annoys you that I don’t care about the outcome but remain on the ballot anyway is quite satisfying though. //

        Well if you goal is to annoy people then you are basically conceding the point I was making. Being on a ballot to annoy people – is that *actually* what you want your journal to stand for?

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      3. No, annoying you is just icing on the cake.

        Nobody who had a voted counted is disenfranchised. They had a vote counted and they lost. You just need to get over it. No wonder you think im sulky, you are projecting. Typical.

        No wonder you are struggling with what i am saying. You dont know what words mean. Im done with this foolishness.

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      4. If you doing things to just annoy a group of people then it is little more than trolling. As for annoying ME specifically then you are not. You are *disappointing* me somewhat but not annoying.

        If nobody who had a vote counted us disenfranchised then nobody is disenfrachised if you had withdrawn – there votes were counted regardless.

        As for thinking that you are sulking that is based purely on the kind of scattershot and aggreived tone of your comments. If that wasn’t the intended affect then you may wish to consider your writing style. I can only go off what you actually say.

        I really don’t see much evidence of you thinking this through beyond feeling aggrieved. Dwelling on perceived slights is not a wise way of spending your time.

        Thanks for dropping by 🙂

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  3. “But to turn down the nomination does directly discard the votes of people who voted for me in good faith.”

    Given that you feel the need to add that last qualifier, you are clearly well aware of what the exact issue is with regards to your “nomination”. Feigning ignorance, while admittedly not a stretch for you, is poor form.

    While I hope you enjoy the exposure you get, I fear that it will be merely illuminating to you. My condolences regardless.

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    1. There is no issue with my nomination. People voted for me and i’m on the ballot. There is no reason to withdraw and disenfranchise those who cast an honest ballot as every puppy did rabid or otherwise. They paid their money and can vote as they see fit.

      After all, it wasn’t the Puppies who decided to blanket no-award last year without reading the works. That was your side.

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      1. //After all, it wasn’t the Puppies who decided to blanket no-award last year without reading the works. That was your side.//

        Which work are you claiming I didn’t read?

        //They paid their money and can vote as they see fit. //

        If you are cool with one publisher trying to rig the award in this way then I guess that pretty much makes everything the Sad Puppies ever complained about completely moot.

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      2. Jason Rennie: it wasn’t the Puppies who decided to blanket no-award last year without reading the works. That was your side.

        No, it wasn’t a “side”. It was pretty much everyone who wasn’t a Puppy. That should tell you something — but you refuse to listen.

        A great many people read the Puppy works (which ranged from okay to bad to execrable). There are reviews all over File770 and the rest of the Internet. The fact that you keep pretending that people didn’t read those works is proof that you refuse to consider that maybe those works weren’t up to what a lot of people call a “standard for Hugo quality”.

         
        Jason Rennie: I’ve told several of your camp how to make Vox get bored and go away and none of you clowns will listen.

        And what is your genius solution to make VD bored and go away? Give Hugos to the crappy works which have been gamed onto the ballot? Really?

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  4. A few disjointed thoughts and observations:

    There is plenty of childishness to go around. The asterisks were childish and kinda mean-spirited payback on the award night. Not really a stellar character display there. And yet, it’s a bit rich for you Mr Rennie to claim the “other side” is childish when one only has to visit the comments sections of any your “side’s” blogs (or even the main bloggers themselves) to see how quickly the name-calling starts: all the stupid acronyms like CHORF (god it hurts even to type something so stupid), SJW etc. I guarantee you that within the span of three comments in places like VD or Dave Freer’s blogs someone will devolve to name-calling or expletives or masculinity challenges of various kinds including death wishes. CF knows this well, having been called cameltoe, camel fellator and various other things, literally within seconds of posting a comment. Say what you want about “the other side”, that does not happen on File 770 so “your side” needs to own its verbal childishness and not point fingers.

    About disenfranchisement: you use the word incorrectly so you’ve already lost the argument on that point. People voted and their votes were counted, ergo: they exercised the franchise. If you mean you are pressured to negate the votes, that’s a more accurate claim, although I note that it is not a pure democracy and you are not beholden to do as anyone votes other than your conscience. The logical extension of that pure democracy claim would lead to some not-great outcomes if you care to extend it out fully. Anyway, by saying you’d need some substantial compensation to withdraw, you’ve already conceded that the voters’ wishes are not absolute and sacrosanct to you anyway.

    Moving on, then, to that very issue of compensation. That point, along with your repeated (mis)invocation of Hartwell’s comment that the Hugo does not have monetary value anymore, indicates a fairly fundamental difference in world view. It seems you cannot conceive of a world in which money and value are not covalent. Hartwell may have found that winning a Hugo no longer carries the direct uptick in sales and income that it did in previous years before the fracturing of the industry, but he most certainly did not say it no longer has value. Income and value are not the same thing. I think there is a pretty fundamental divide between you and CF on that particular way of viewing both the world and value of this award, so there’s that.

    I will just ask, though, if all human endeavour is to be reduced to value in dollar terms, what exactly is your problem with the Labour Theory of Value? Does labour brought to bear on capital and resources not represent essential (and essentialized) value that can be quantified and compensated? It would seem very obvious that it does. It was a very puzzling throwaway slur there, and I’d be curious to hear you clarify.

    Finally, I just flat out don’t believe you when you say you (and VD) don’t care about the award, because a basic understanding of human behavior indicates that people don’t spent time or energy or resources or emotions on things they don’t care about. So, having ascertained that you do care, I am really puzzled why there seems to be such masculinist pride in pretending not to care? People like to win awards!. I want an award! What is wrong with simply saying “I’m not withdrawing because I’d kinda like to win a Hugo, I think I did good work that merits it, and here’s my chance to see if people agree”. Why does that very human reaction have to be dressed up as something noble about the franchise and the people or wanting stick it to some imaginary enemy force on behalf of one’s side? Really, can’t you (and for that matter VD) just say yeah, I’d like to win the award? There is no shame or weakness in wanting to win an award.

    I’d also like to suggest the idea about only two “sides” here is pretty stupid in and of itself. *Flips open dictionary, looks up definition of “false dichotomy”* Yup.

    CF has made the better arguments here, unfortunately for you. He has left an undefended flank, but I’m not going to point it out for you mainly because I enjoy his writing and you seem kind of hostile in general (see? that’s how tribalism works, yay! My “side” right or wrong)

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    1. Really, can’t you (and for that matter VD) just say yeah, I’d like to win the award? There is no shame or weakness in wanting to win an award.

      i think it’s partly because the VD/GamerGate flavour of internet bully treat emotions as shameful and a sign of weakness*. but also because it’s a bit awkward when they don’t win.

      * unless it’s the spittle-flecked rage they’re directing at ${target_du_jour}, natch.

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