Author: Sarah A. Hoyt

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The REAL American Dream

by Alpheus Madsen
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Every so often I’ll hear a news report about a sports person, or a movie star, or an unusually lucky businessman, or a lottery winner, and the reporter will say “This person has achieved the American Dream!”. I always cringe when I hear that. The hidden implication behind such statements is that the American Dream is to get rich beyond your wildest dreams, and then spend your newfound riches seeking extreme pleasure until you are a mere shell of what you used to be. The problem with this, though, is that becoming rich has nothing to do with the American Dream.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that money isn’t important, by any means. Money is the means by which we can take care of our needs, research new ideas, and in general have fun — however, if we don’t have control of our money, it will destroy us. When I first heard of Robin William’s suicide, it broke my heart to hear that the debts of his houses, former marriage financial obligations, and difficulty obtaining new acting work likely contributed to his suicide. Someone who made millions over the years, however, shouldn’t have had these issues on his mind! He should have lived well within his means, and should have had his wealth secured in good investments, so that when these other trials came along, money shouldn’t have been on his mind.

But then, Robin Williams isn’t the best example: he was suffering from something called diffuse Lewy body dementia, which, as I understand it, is a horrible thing to suffer through. No matter what we can achieve financially, there will always be horrible things that can happen to us. Perhaps a better example can be illustrated by a mansion sitting on top of a mountain ridge in Moab. I still remember when we visited Moab as a family, and my Dad pointed to that mansion, saying “That was built by a person who made a fortune in uranium prospecting, and then lost it all.” That person is Charles Steen, who, with his wife, struggled in poverty leading up to that fortune, and then built that mansion, threw weekly parties for people in Moab, and flew with his wife to Salt Lake City for weekly Salsa lessons. Then, sometime in the 1950’s, the United States Government decided they had enough money for their needs, the price of uranium collapsed, and Charlie’s fortune pretty much collapsed with it. He managed to live until 2006, though, although he never had the wealth that he did in the 1950’s.

So the first lesson in this is that you must live within your means! Even if you have to go into debt, live within your means! Well, ok, it’s more difficult to live within your means when, like me, you’re not rich, but instead have mounds of student debt and getting blindsided somewhat regularly with medical issues. I cannot emphasize enough (backed by experience, to boot!) that if you have to go into gobs of debt to achieve your dreams, there’s probably something wrong with how you are trying to achieve your dreams. And I will not hesitate to say that the Federal Government’s encouraging of vulnerable students to go into mounds of debt pursuing those “passions” that simply don’t have any marketable value, in an attempt to get everyone into the middle class, is probably one of the most harmful things they could have dreamed up to harm the real American Dream, than anything else they could have devised.

It’s clear that money isn’t the core of the American Dream. If the American Dream isn’t getting rich, then, just what is it?

In one word, it’s Freedom. It’s the ability to decide we want to have a nice little cottage with a picket fence in the mountains, and/or a bungalow on the beach, and saving up until we can buy one or both. It’s the ability to decide what we can do and what we enjoy doing, and then use those to help other people with their problems. It’s the ability to save money for the future — both to own and do things that we think are fun, and to make investments that will ensure that we’ll be comfortable in our old age. It’s the ability to organize friends and strangers into small gatherings, clubs and even conventions, to discuss things that we enjoy discussing. It’s the ability to forgo that promotion, and its accompanying raise, because you’d rather live comfortably and see your family, than be rich and alienated from your children. It’s the ability to help people in need, because you have the time and resources to help those people. It’s the ability to do things completely irrelevant to our training and our profession, heck, to do things completely irrelevant to making money, just because we find them amusing. In short, it’s the ability to prosper, and to help others prosper too! And sometimes, when we are in the pursuit of all this, we do something so important, riches inevitably come in anyway.

Many people gain riches, but fail to do things that make them happy, and fail to organize their finances to secure themselves for the future. Such people fail to achieve the promise of the American Dream. In contrast, Brigham Young University ran a study to see how their business students were doing in the market place, and found that their alumnni would typically rise up to middle management and then get stuck there. Rather than cry “Discrimination!” (which, being Mormon, they can easily do) they ran another study to figure out just what was happening, and found that their alumni generally rose to a position with good responsibilities and pay, that didn’t require them to work long hours that would take them from their families — which is a very important family value. In other words, the alumni were finding work they enjoyed that was in line with their values. If we take for granted that upper management really needs to work those extra hours they do (a debatable claim, to be sure), then it’s clear that no amount of social engineering will put BYU Mormon alumni into upper management. They have their values, they know what rewards they want, and they get exactly what they want. This is what freedom looks like! And this applies to all minorities, even the smallest ones, which is why, beyond working to ensure that everybody is free to choose whatever career that might interest them, it’s a fool’s errand to try to fix perceived injustices in the marketplace.

The American Dream prospers in large part because we believe that we can do whatever we want to do, regardless of what others want us to do; thus, the greatest dangers to the American Dream are those imposed by government and, to a lesser extent, by society itself, via regulations and social pressures telling us what we can and cannot do, generally independent of what is truly harmful to others. So long as Americans have an attitude of ignoring the multitude of regulations and social pressures so complex that no one — not even bureaucrats, lawyers, judges and social justice warriors — can fully know, the American Dream should prosper, particularly if Americans grow to understand the regulatory thorns in our side, and find ways to root them out.

Now, I don’t wish to contradict our esteemed hostess’s reasons for participating in the lottery, but here is Bill Whittle’s video where he has an interesting take on why the lottery is evil. (Ah, who am I kidding? Sarah is an Evil Space Princess, so what would you expect? How can she not participate in something so evil as the lottery?) The point of providing this link isn’t to emphasize the evils of the lottery, so much as to provide yet another very optimistic take on just what the American Dream is — and what we should go and do about it!

Bill Whittle’s Afterburner — Winning the Lottery

So, what are you waiting for? Go, and live the American Dream! And do whatever you can to get rid of and/or neutralize those meddling bureaucrats!

A Precious Narrative

By Cedar Sanderson

Storytelling is woven into human DNA. Even the discovery of DNA’s shape is enrobed in a thrilling tale of deceit and betrayal – with a sexist twist, of course. We tell our stories every single day. Some of us are very clearly aware of the delineations between fact and fantasy, and make our living spinning narratives others enjoy reading for the fun of it. Other people lose the boundaries between fiction and their own desires, and that’s where it starts to get, for lack of a better word, problematic.

I would argue that in order to exist in this world full of contradictions, some people must create an insulting narrative to keep them from confronting the harsh realities that surround them. Without that precious blanket (and you may also envision a thumb firmly inserted for sucking on) they might have to face truths they cannot accept. I’ve seen this time and time again. Heaven help you if you dent their story, because they will lash out in irrational anger. It really doesn’t matter if you can prove they are wrong and you’re in the right. That’s not what they feel is right.

Thus, the idea becomes that reality is an amorphous thing, moldable by the individual human as they drift through life, bumping into things and adding buffers at those sore spots. How did we get here, you might ask, and I’ll be asking it right along with you. Mark Gover of Michigan State University calls it an ‘intellectual cul-de-sac’ which seems very apt when we consider the dead-end results of basing ‘truth’ solely on one’s own desires. He states: “Similarly, the quest for an absolute ground of narrative, either as a structure embedded in the mind or as a stylized cultural tradition, is ultimately a crazy-making pursuit.”

We need, then, some kind of lodestone outside our selves to ground our reality. Observation, data, and analysis are crucial to keeping our unconscious daily narrative from becoming insanely out of touch with the world as-it-is, rather than the world as-we-desire-it-to-be. Even science is not immune to the creation of a narrative, when it ceases to question some particular that has become established as tradition. Aside from the current position that climate change is settled science, we can see the failings of science in the case of fat intake – demonized in the 1960s, through research that was funded by the sugar industry (JAMA, Nov. 2016) – and in shaky peer-reviewed papers that, well, sometimes are obviously not reviewed at all (there have been entire papers consisting of profanity, or thinly-veiled Star Wars references).

But still, science is the best solution we have to ensure that we are grounded and sane in the face of the narratives that come rushing at us daily with their contradictory claims. I know that I often say ‘data is not anecdote’ but it is difficult to deny the attraction of knowing that something works for/has happened to you, or even to someone you know well and trust. This is, after all, how word-of-mouth marketing works. The trust circle we surround ourselves with forms our narrative and reality, and if, say, your best friend posts on social media ‘I just read this great book!’ you are that much more likely to buy that book next time you are looking for something to read. It was good for your friend, and you know you like the same sort of books, so… and most of the time that works very well.

On the other hand, if your friend posts a meme from David Avocado Wolfe, and you just scan it and say ‘oh, RoundUp causes cancer? And I’ve seen ten other memes about that in the last week! It must be true.’ And I’m here to tell you that even Mother Jones has published an expose showing that the study published showing glyphosphate (active ingredient in RoundUp) was carcinogenic was based on flawed data, with proof that it was not cancer-causing being withheld by one of the main scientists.

Trust, but Verify. Relying on memes for solid data is a bad idea, but you wouldn’t know that from social media. Between confirmation bias making people click share before their brain has a chance to engage, and the phenomenon of ‘everybody knows’ the whole scandal over ‘fake news’ is simply human nature. Once that battle played out in yellow journalism, now it flashes across the face of the globe in an instant through the ‘intarwebs.’

Narrative is baked-in from birth. Family forms some, school takes over around the age of five (with preschool getting younger and younger these days, whether that’s good for children, or not doesn’t matter, it’s part of the social narrative that a child won’t succeed without pre-school). Increasingly, the narrative a child is told does not come from parents, but from teachers (or shall I say educators?), peers, the internet, and television. These have always been factors – or were, to some extent, but it is inescapable that in the Age of the Internet, just as in the Age of Steam before it, the revolution of technology has been overwhelmingly fast, and we are still processing the changes in our culture, and in our narratives.

Are the stories we tell true? How do we know? We must question, and listen critically to voices that are not telling us what we want to hear. When we take in the narrative of the media, we must ask ‘what is the bias?’ Above I mentioned the studies which led to low-fat diets, and possibly deleterious effects on the health of millions of Americans, were funded by the sugar industry. Who is paying for your news? What will they gain by telling this story? Dig down to see where the source of the story is. You’ll find, more often than not, a multitude of stories spring, like Zeus’ children, from the forehead of one journalist. Whether or not that original story was fact, or fiction. When a person wants something to be true hard enough, they unconsciously write that narrative, rather than the truth.

I keep hearing the cliche’d saying ‘there are three sides to every story. Yours, theirs, and the truth.’ Perhaps, but I find it annoying. Trained in investigation, I refuse to believe the implicit declaration in this: that the truth is unknowable. Instead, I think that with persistence, and evidence, truth can be known. If you are willing to accept that perhaps you are partly incorrect, and to admit that when you are, you can analyze the story and find the truth. If you are not willing to admit you may be wrong, then the truth is going to remain invisible to you.

There Are Four Lights
by Synova

There are a number of things that I’ve learned over the last few years.  Here is a partial list.  I’ve tried to be as fair as possible and include things that were explained to me and which I can specifically place, both where I heard them and who was speaking.

For example, just recently someone shared a post talking about a YA book that had been declared racist by a self-appointed judge who encouraged all of her significant number of followers to harass the author and make sure her book failed. (It didn’t.) But the person who originally sat in judgement of the book also made a curious statement, that no one should read for themselves to confirm if the book was bad or not.   I’m sure that many of you can think of specific cases where someone has insisted that people not listen to the other side, don’t read, don’t engage, don’t judge for yourself.

Some are paraphrases and contractions, such as “Their speech is violence and our violence is speech.”  That’s not often paired, because pairing it highlights the problem.  But “speech as violence” is something often said in complete seriousness by educated people who should know better.  I can picture two or more specific individuals who have made the argument in my hearing (or at least reading.)  And hearing violent marches, riots, or other performative sorts of things described as protected speech is also not at all uncommon.  After all, what is breaking that Starbucks window if it’s not political speech?

I’ve skipped the sorts of things I learned that had very narrow political or social focus.  Lots of people are wrong about lots of things and it’s not useful to list the little stuff.  There are a few science fiction specific ones on the list that some of you will recognize, though.

Things I have learned:

• The only reason I can vote or have anything good in life is because someone in history was an asshole, therefore assholery toward random fellow citizens is proved to effect positive social change.
• Processing your Privilege in Public via confessions and discussion among other privileged white women helps. Like hashtags.
• Tolerance is about the moral necessity to be intolerant.
• Inclusion will be achieved when enough of the right people are excluded.
• Compassion is about figuring out who doesn’t deserve any, such as that fellow who got tortured to death by North Korea for stealing a propaganda poster. That guy didn’t deserve any.
• Free Speech only applies to things that have broad public approval.
• Their speech is violence and our violence is speech.
• Comparing identical behavior and motivations is a false equivalency if different people are involved.
• A conversation involves listening until you understand.
• There are no bad tactics, only bad targets.
• Bigotry based on race isn’t racism.
• Anyone is entitled to a little violent acting out when judged negatively due to their race, except for white men, who are better people.
• If someone has made it possible for people to lie about them, the liars are entitled to run with it.
• Authoritarian threats can be solved with more government.
• “Anarchists” want more government.
• Denying slander proves that it’s true.
• Making little old church ladies uncomfortable is funnier than hell, and probably means you’re a good person.
• Disproving an ideology through words and logic actually makes that ideology stronger.
• No one should read a book that’s been condemned nor listen to a speaker they expect to say bad things.
• Getting people fired is right and just and true, and you should be very proud of yourself.
• Shutting down speech, reporting thought crime, and destroying people’s lives doesn’t make you a fascist.
• Wearing the face of a man who was a murderer, racist, sexist, and homophobe on your shirt means you’re down with the struggle.
• Constitutional protections are subject to how strong your feelings are.
• Morality can and should be legislated, just not that old morality that you didn’t like.

What have you learned in the last few years?  Keep it clean and have fun.

How Political Ideology Trumps Family
By Rhiain

The title of this post was a compromise. There were plenty of other titles I could’ve settled for instead, given the subject matter: “How I Allowed My Victimhood Complex To Ruin My Relationship With My Mother,” “How Her White Privilege Ruined My Relationship With My Mother,” and “How I Virtue-Signaled Hard AF (common millennial slang) In ‘The Root’ Over My Trump-Voting Mother” were some of my discarded choices. No, “How Political Ideology Trumps Family” turns out to be a fitting alternative header for this post.

The author makes clear that he loves his parent, but clearly he has a problem with a)the social differences currently wrought from her skin color and his, b)her choice of presidential candidate, and c)his mother’s inability to understand “the black man’s struggle.”

My mother voted for Donald Trump. She’s also white. And she and her (white) husband are members of the National Rifle Association, own two small businesses—including a gun shop—and were actually screwed by Obamacare. In short, my mother is probably what a typical, white Midwesterner looks like on paper. Except, she’s not. She’s an immigrant. She moved to the United States from France in 1970 when she was (I believe) 13 years old.

This American-born homeboy apparently believes that because his mother wasn’t originally born on U.S. soil, she should’ve known better than to vote for that bigoted misogynist in the White House. Yes, really. Immigrants should be naturally inclined to better understand Teh Struggle of younger non-white or mixed-race American citizens.

Our homeboy describes his background growing up with a black father and white mother, and accepts that he’s a “light-skinned black dude.” It’s great that he never “struggled with [his] racial identity,” but astute readers who aren’t “woke” will note that it takes him awhile to admit that his complaints about America revolve around race – all the time. I don’t know about you, but people who obsess about the flaws of others who don’t share the same levels of melanin tend to be bitterly angry shrews. See K. Tempest Bradford’s posts if you want an example of such a person.

If I’m being honest, there has been a very slow erosion of the relationship over time because of what I view as her lack of perspective about the life of her children. Maybe our reality wasn’t hers on a daily basis, but denying our reality, even passively, was eventually going to be the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Let’s get something straight: homeboy complains about racial injustices regularly around his non-black mother, but refuses to acknowledge that perhaps his mother’s views on the subject of race wasn’t influenced by politics or even skin color so much as it was by the common American sensibility to “live and let live.”

“Woke” people can’t seem to get this through their thick skulls in this day and age: many Americans, until now, have been more preoccupied with the daily tasks of life than they are with figuratively assaulting others with their politics. Nowadays conservatives and libertarians wax nostalgic about the times when they could have dinner with liberal friends and relatives; polarizing subjects could be glossed over in favor of good food and discussions that had nothing to do with politics. Believe me, this used to be possible. Given the modern liberal’s penchant for segregating their loved ones by political party, I’m convinced those days are over.

Something, somewhere changed. Shortly after the election, my sister and I had planned to head to Michigan for the Thanksgiving holiday. That visit went off the rails before it even started when my mother decided that we would be going to my stepfather’s family’s house for dinner, a family I knew voted for Trump.

Something did change, though it wasn’t on his mother’s part. Homeboy decides he doesn’t want to have Thanksgiving with a bunch of Trump voters, and last November he wasn’t the only one with such sentiments.

His mother and aunt visited last week, and things escalate quickly when his Trump-supporting parent buys MAGA gear and dons it on a tour of the U.S. capital:

But this is when our relationship hit the point from which I realized we’d never fully recover. When we were getting in the car to head to Rockville, Md., she asked why I found the T-shirt offensive. I told her that by her wearing that shirt, it showed that she didn’t care about my life or those of her grandchildren or daughter; after we argued, she refused to speak to me for hours, again.

“Make America Great Again” quickly became as tiresome a political slogan as “Hope and Change” did in the aftermath of last year’s election, but homeboy doesn’t elaborate on how it makes his mother a callous woman. Nor does he explain why his mother’s political worldview endangers his life. He seems to assume that his readers understand that Donald J. Trump’s presidency is enough of a gamechanger in his familial relationships to not bother with an explanation.

‘Scuse me, homeboy, but homegirl here is confused. Or bemused. Or something.

I can’t sit and actively engage with a person—even if it is my mother, whose blood is running through my body—if she doesn’t care about me, my story or what I live through. If she can’t see past her own appreciation for a bigoted, dangerous man, who, because of the position people like her have placed him in, has the ability to do significant damage to my civil liberties, then I don’t know what place she can have, reasonably, in my life.

His public decision to cut off his mother due to a difference in political views is a common occurrence these days. It started on the evening of November 8, 2016 and seems to have snowballed since. Friends are cutting off longtime friends based on how they voted last year. Same thing is happening with families.

Blood is not thicker than freedom and it’s not thicker than safety. Sometimes blood is just that, blood. I know my mother loves me; I’m her son. But, honestly, I don’t think my mother cares about what that really means.

I agree with everything in this graph except for the last sentence. Homeboy, some words of advice:

It ain’t all about you.

You filled a post with an innocent-sounding string of anecdotes about the dissolution of your relationship with your mother. You were wronged by her vote for a man that you consider dangerous and bigoted, yet you blame that man for the damage done instead of engaging in a little introspection.

You view life and especially its flaws through the lenses of race and social justice, which doesn’t make you sound like a fun person to be around on a regular basis. Donald J. Trump wouldn’t know you from Jamal, yet somehow he jeopardizes your life and safety by his office and very existence. Folks from both sides of the aisle are guilty of fearmongering when someone from the opposite political party is in power, but good gods above, man, act like a man, not a wussified homeboy afraid of his own shadow.

If you want to challenge the president on his stances and Tweets, there’s a line as long as the country is wide. First, however, grow some balls and stop blaming him for your own selfishness where your mother’s concerned. Recognize there’s no harm in your political views diverging from hers, which is so common that I can’t believe I have to remind you of this. Yes, members of white, non-white and mixed-race American families all vote differently, if they vote. Shocker, I know! Once you acknowledge this, try to consider that differing political views from one’s parent doesn’t automatically make her the enemy. That’s the important thing; people these days are too quick to label even family as “the enemy.” Before it was “The Other,” but liberals seem to have escalated that.

I mean, after the events of last weekend in Charlottesville, I’m almost tempted to grab a tiki torch for giggles and march through the streets myself, white hood and all, even though I’m not white and certainly not a Nazi. But if doing so forces you to start thinking about the futility of drawing a bloody line over the pettiest of sociopolitical issues, I will have accomplished something.

No, seriously, I’m feeling very odd, and not even sure what is going on.  I woke up feeling either very tired, terminally relaxed or depressed, and I can’t tell which.  I know this is bizarre, and it’s possible what it actually is is “coming down with a cold” or something like that.  I just know nothing matters very much and I want to sleep a lot.  I hope it’s not a cold, as it would be very hard in terms of traveling on Wednesday.

The other side of this is that I’ve been doing some work with professional guidance.  No, not exactly seeing a psychiatrist, but a friend is a psychiatrist and we’ve been talking.  Believe it or not, I’m writing a novel to work through my problems.  This is the same world I hid in when I was very unhappy growing up.  So, the terminally relaxed makes some sense.  But it’s weird.  If I shed my neurosis, what have I got?

Anyway, I have no intention of just sleeping, because I want to leave the house some semblance of clean, or at least not the mess it is right now, and I also have some clothes to take in/let out before we go.

I realized yesterday that I forgot to give you the program for oh, from tomorrow through the 10th of September.

I am running a lot of guest posts/blasts from the past.  I might write a post if something of note happens and if we have connectivity (we will, at least at times) I’ll drop into the comments and hang out as usual, but pardon me for doing this, okay?  I need some time off.  Not a lot, and not off-off.  I’ll be working on Guardian for one (was just telling the boss when to expect manuscript) and other stuff, if I finish earlier than expected, but…

Every morning I wake up with the consciousness I owe a blog.  I’d like two weeks without it.  After that, I’m going to try to do more of a write all posts one day and then schedule them too, because just the anxiety of figuring what to write for you every morning often stops me writing fiction and that’s not good.

BUT the blog will go on, and I arranged some great guest posts for you, from the polemic to the informative (Stephanie will have a series on the New Madrid fault.)  I hope you’ll enjoy it and only miss me a little.  (You have to miss me a little, otherwise what’s the point of coming back.)

Once school is in full swing, and we know his schedule, I’ll try to rope younger spawn in to a post a week, and maybe I can get Dan to do something once a week too.  Perhaps “adventures in tech” since I SWEAR he’s always figuring out something new to do with his computers.

Meanwhile, please keep this country in one piece and the ports open so I can come back.  I don’t want to have to devise a way to walk back from Europe.  I’d be very pissed by the time I get back.  You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.

Oh, yeah, as to the eclipse, a few things:

In the Dark of the Sun

Officials In South Carolina Are Warning Citizens Of Possible Lizard Man Sightings During The Eclipse

AND

Eclipse tips: Prepare for werewolves and the Moon Serpent

Unintended – a blast from the past from April, 2015

It is trite to talk about the law of unintended consequences because at this point — I think — everyone knows everything they do has unintended consequences, that is consequences other than the ones they were looking for.  Well, almost everyone.  I still hear people say things like “We should outlaw x” and never thinking of what that will mean for x, y and z.  More interestingly, I heard people saying “we should compel x” and never think of the consequences of evading that particular law.

But the really funny thing about unintended consequences (and by this I don’t mean funny ah ah) is what I call the third ending problem.

What third ending problem?

Well, when we were starting out in writing, we were told to reach for the third ending.  When you’re reading a novel or a short story, you expect one of two endings (the good and the bad.)  Depending on your level of sophistication, or the book’s accuracy of foreshadowing, you might anticipate the ending in precise and exquisite detail.  You just have to see which of the endings.  (For instance in the book I’m reading now all the characters seem to be mentally impaired, and I’ve guessed the ending and the little surprises all along all the way.  Yeah, it’s a disposable romance [not all romance is like this] because that’s what came to hand when I reached for a book.  Yeah, I have better things to read, but this sort of works because it’s almost at the Disney comics level.)

So we were encouraged to reach for the third ending.  Not precisely a surprise ending, but one that will close the book with a bang.

I’m not sure this is right, btw.  It is appropriate for a certain time in the history of the field, and for a certain level.  And yep, in mystery it’s a good idea to at least partially surprise the reader.  This is not necessary in science fiction.  Or not necessarily necessary.  There are science fiction books that are mysteries.  At the end you find out who was behind it all, say.  But still in the main, we want to know sort of how it will end, and are reading for the details.

Take Witchfinder (please.  I could use the cash) the ending I’m sure surprises no one except for one minor, personal detail.

But anyway, that’s a digression and I know you’re shocked.  The thing is that in real life, even those of us who know that actions have consequences and that the broader the action, the more general the up to down push, the more likely that the consequence will be the third ending, as it were.

For instance, take solar panels.  The intended consequence is to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels.  The unintended consequence is to roast birds on the go.  The third ending consequence is that it convinces people who know nothing about energy or its storage that it would be a good idea to artificially burden fossil fuels with taxes and to make mining for them impossible, in order to make people go “solar.”  Because it exists, they imagine it could supply all our energy needs.  (I’m sorry, I’d say “he” but I’m not sure it’s all or even mostly his idea.)  There are other third ending consequences (there always are) like the flushing of public money down the unending rat hole of charlatans promising better and more abundant solar energy.

Or take the boondoogle the consolidated after many mergers publishing houses thought of: we can deal with the big conglomerate bookstores and tell them what to carry.  They’ll have sensible business men who don’t read the books and argue with us, and this will make the public buy the “correct” books — or at least those we want to push.

The intended consequence was the ability to manufacture bestsellers on command; to pick who would be a best seller (mind you, it wasn’t even political at first, or at least it’s unlikely it was just political.  Creatives are hard to work with.  They often have trouble working with themselves.  Being able to pick the “sensible” creatives for success would be enough of an enticement.  The fact those aren’t usually VERY creative is something that would never occur to the publishers.)   The unintended consequence was the spiraling down of print runs.  For decades publishers had been allowed to think they were in tune with the readers’ tastes, and later that they could form them without consequence.

But for decades, stuff had become hits that the publishers didn’t anticipate.  Under the old, chaotic system, enough small bookshop owners reading your book and hand-selling it to enough clients could make you a bestseller that no one had seen coming.

The new system closed that loophole and controlled completely which books even got seen, and certainly which got “buzz” and which got bought.

As I said, the unintended consequence was a lot of power readers (me!) retreating to other genres or to their libraries to read their old stuff.

The third ending consequences are … well, the least hard to see is Bezos.

But there are others.  The most important was the hardening of thought and belief in the small and incestuous publishing industry, by self-feeding loops.

If they can make whatever they want sell a bazillion copies, then they have an unerring ability to pick what’s good and what people will read, right?  This means that they are that in tune with the public taste that clearly what they favor and think is wonderful must be what everyone wants.  Even though they are the result of maybe a handful of colleges and the culture of one or two big cities, they can pick for everyone in the country.

End result, more bleeding of readership which is never attributed to their taste — because after all, look how well they “predict” what will sell (after they close off every other avenue, of course, but never mind)  and what won’t — so it must be people aren’t reading anymore.  People are watching TV and playing games.  That must be it.

And then the third solution walks in wearing the name Bezos.  And they’re so shocked all they can do is boo.

But there are other third solution consequences they never even thought of.  The very system encouraged conformity and anodyne writing.  They didn’t notice it because the conformity was to their beliefs, and the anodyne writing involved “shocking” non existent old ladies in Podunk whom they thought should be shocked.  For the last several years the problem with most “pushed” fiction is not that it’s shocking, or distasteful, or human-hating (though it usually is human-hating) but that it’s predictable and boring.

And then there’s the third solution consequence of that consequence, so far off they couldn’t anticipate it.

I’ll do them the courtesy of thinking that they knew they would be wasting a lot of talent.  I.e. that they realized that they would be cutting short the careers of people they plain didn’t like (for political or other reasons) and therefore destroying talent before it developed.

What I don’t think they realized is that those of us who managed to escape the scythe for years despite refusing to sing in the choir of their thoughts and beliefs would be versatile, able, and very, very resilient. Or that, if we found a way to bypass their rigged system and get to the public, the public would like us better.

Sometimes third ending solutions are a right b*tch.

So, when you’re tempted to despair or to think we’re ruled by evil geniuses, think of the third ending solution.  They’re not geniuses (though they might be evil) and they usually don’t think beyond the obvious solution.

Take importing millions of unskilled laborers into a high tech economy.  They do think that they can tax those of us already here and give them benefits and it’s a way to compensate for being richer than other countries.  They might take as an unintended consequence that it will displace our own unskilled workers, and therefore create an aggrieved proletariat which they can incite against “the rich”.  It’s an unintended consequence but not one they dislike.

What they don’t think of are the third ending consequences: that it will also fatally damage the economy, that rich people will leave the country and shelter their income (for some reason this always takes communists/socialists by surprise.  Every d*mn time.); that the reduced economy/benefits will cause those immigrants to go back to their homeland; that the stagnant economy will cause our best and brightest to go elsewhere looking for jobs; that the only businesses who can survive are massive corporations; that the discrimination they see everywhere will actually make a come back.

In the same way when they create ever higher minimum-wage, they can see that those who remain employed will have more money; they might see that it will cause a lot of people to be let go, but they think “generous welfare benefits.”  What they don’t see is that it will bias towards big companies who can pay that sort of beginning wage and deal with the paperwork for ever increasing regulations will be the only ones surviving.  And if they saw it they might think “well, they will deal better with the government, so that’s fine.”

What they don’t see is that choking off small business, not only chokes off innovation but results in a slow throttling of the economy.  They don’t see this because they believe in fixed pie economics.  They can’t be grown, and they can’t be shrunk.

They can look at Europe and see their future, but  the third ending consequence is always a shock.

And that is why top down control, in publishing or in business or in government is always ruinous.

The third ending consequences multiply and by being surprises they are inherently unanticipated.

Reading older science fiction, I come across government by “smart men” sometimes aided by “large computers” who anticipate everything.

Real life is more difficult.  There are too many intersecting plot threads, too many intersecting individuals and goals.

No one can know when their great scheme of controlling distribution will result in a Bezos and their ruin… metaphorically speaking.  And nobody can know how their wish to work with “sensible” creatives can destroy the very field they work in… metaphorically speaking.

The horror of this is that people who never think of the third plot solution will continue to pile their top down “remedies” on us and that we’ll also have to suffer the consequences.

The good news is that in an era when technology and creativity are key, there is a good chance we can survive and thrive.

Build under, build around, build over.  Create your own systems around theirs.

Be the unintended third ending consequence.

Be not afraid.

Okay, guys, a quick update/admnistrivia and then a writing exercise at the bottom.

To begin with, we’re leaving on Wednesday for two weeks in Europe, i.e. for once not Portugal.  It’s complicated.  More about this later.  It involves research for one leg of the Black Tide book, though, among other things.

Older son will be staying behind, and we have someone come in to look after the cats in case he forgets.  (He’ll be doing his clinical year, so I suspect sometimes the cats will get fed five times a day and sometimes none as far as he’s concerned.)

Meanwhile I’m very late on books owed to people who won them, and t-shirts and Shwag to subscribers.  Honestly, the problem was that once I was ready to send them, I couldn’t find the fargin boxes because of our movers evenly distributed stuff that belongs in the office from the attic to the garage.

When I come back I’m taking three days or so to unpack my office properly (shoving a hodge podge of boxes into the closet is not unpacking) and clearing the garage, because older son will need to park in it in Winter, so he doesn’t have to scrape ice off his window on his way to hospital.  So mid September I SHOULD have everything I owe people in my hot little hands, and can then do a mass-shipping.

I’m going to request PLEASE that if I owe you stuff you email me not now but around Sept 12.  Sorry it’s been so long, but life has been way too complicated and is just starting to smooth out.

Needless to say I’ll be writing in Europe.  Yeah, we’re sort of trying to cram in a vacation too, but honestly we don’t know HOW to do that.  Our last “not seeing relatives/not convention” vacation-vacation was our honeymoon almost 33 years ago.

The only model for vacation we have is the weekends in Denver and those are very pleasant and we DO get a lot of writing done.  So we’re going to try this.  It will be mostly Guardian, which I hope to have finished when I come back.

Then I need to get Dyce 4 and the vampire musketeer II out.  And then well, there’s the black tide book, and I suppose I shouldn’t leave you guys waiting for years for the next Darship, let alone the Shifters which has been years.  So there’s those.  And that’s the rest of the year.  However, if I do those, it leaves me able to start in January with Dragons, and a couple of other things I’ve backburnered.

At least if no more disasters hit us this year. Let’s hope not.

Oh, and all of you are in charge of making sure I have a country to come back to.  Things have gotten distressingly silly out there.

Right, so your writing prompt is a beginning and remember this is NOT necessarilly romance (in fact, the three ideas I can think of all SF/F though mystery could work too):

I sat down, trembling.  He had touched me.  Nothing would be the same again.

Those Who Walk Away From Feminism

A Message to the Children of the Revolution: Grow Up!

Dear Leftists, There Are No Nazis Under Your Bed

In Defense of Vile Speech

Strange Days in America

I’m starting to get really tired of White Knights.

You’ve seen these gentlemen.  They rush in, when they perceive someone as being in danger, and pavane around with grandeur, proclaim their goodness and wonderfulness, and their willingness to defend the helpless.  And nine times out of ten, leave, full of honor and glory, leaving things worse than they found them.

Except the modern versions don’t ask you if you are helpless, they just assume.  And they don’t do anything except signal their virtue and their willingness to defend you.  Oh, they might take the opportunity to bash a few of their personal enemies, perhaps by claiming that they are your enemies too.

They’ve been all over recently.  Yes, sure, there are many minorities online, who, having fully imbibed the Kool-Aid, are now merrily calling everyone a Nazi on the slimmest of pretexts.  But most such offenders are in fact lily white and convinced of their own special wonderfulness.  It was a lily white and, if I had to guess, upper middle class young man who took it upon himself to tell me I should be grateful to Antifa for saving me from vile speech.

Well, this first generation, immigrant Latina is not grateful.  Do you know why she is not grateful?  Because no one asked you to defend me.  Certainly no one asked a communist front group with a frightening penchant for violence and vandalism to defend me.  And if I wanted to be defended it wouldn’t be from speech, vile or not.  It would be from active, physical aggression, which communists are at least as likely (and possibly more) to engage in than the crazy racists.

I’m no more acceptable to communists than I am to the Nazis.  The Nazis would reject me on account of my origins and the fact that I can tan really dark when I get out of the office and into the rays of the evil day star.  And Antifa would reject me because I think people who attack their fellow citizens are despicable and their theories of power and wealth are wrong and based on the crazy theories of Marx, the most overrated dead white man ever.  And because I’m tired of their trying to impose their ignorance and cultish beliefs on the rest of us.

I don’t want either side to defend me from the other.  I accept that both have the right to say whatever they please, and I hope they do it far away from me.  If they come to my attention, I am entitled to make fun of them by all means available.

Because you see, I’m not delicate, I’m not helpless, and I don’t need a white knight.

The implicit insult the white knight’s defense is the idea that those they are defending are in need of help.

My accent gets me very odd reactions in the US.  For a long while they ranged from the people who thought I’d come to the US to escape the direst poverty (well, maybe in US terms, but really!) to the people who thought I’d left my beautiful, traditional society to come here, as a ambassador of our peaceful and quaint ways.  Which means they know bloody nothing about Portuguese history, or American history.  Or any history, really.

Of the two, I prefer the first.  They listen.  When I point out that my family was middle class (granted for the village, where we were all as poor as Job) and that my degree probably would have got me a better material life than I have here, but I came here because I fell mad in love with America and the ideals it was founded on (yes, I fell mad in love with my husband too.  Still am, after 33 years, but you know, HE was willing to move to be with me) they tend to listen and understand.

The ones who despise America though, and who want me to be the ambassador of my peaceful and quaint culture don’t listen and don’t understand.  And they get really angry that someone from a country where people tan can insist that the US is better.  And they get REALLY upset when I tell them that no, the US doesn’t oppress me, and no, I don’t need their help.

Because you know, all those allies who come in “white knighting” it to defend women and minorities, don’t really want to defend women and minorities.

They most of all want to claim victimhood.  They think America and non-minorities are somehow evil.  And the only way they can wash off that evil is to identify with a minority and defend it tooth and nail.

Second, they want the glory and virtue that comes from being “enlightened” and “helping” minorities.

They want to be the voice for the voiceless and the strength for the weak.  But only if the voice says what they want to say and if the persona admires and endorses their strength.

In other words, they want to use people not like them to aggrandize themselves.  They want to impose beliefs and experiences they believe people of a different color or gender or orientation should have on those people.  They want to receive power and adulation from telling everyone how to live and from othering others.  They are ignorant of US history and virgin of world history, but they feel the need to tell you how everyone should feel, even people from other countries.

They are the privileged, coddled, praised products of self esteem education.  And they’ll trample anyone, demean anyone, destroy anyone, and bring down their own country in an effort to continue thinking of themselves as the best, the brightest and the kindest people who ever lived.

The expression behind the great, shining helm of the white knight is a smirk of superiority.

*Sorry for two Blasts from the past so close together, but part of what I’m doing is trying to diminish the number of hours this blog takes, because, yes, fiction work is what pays.  But also, I was looking for a BFP for Tuesday and came across this.  I’d already selected one for Tuesday and put it up, but I thought “Wow, this certainly is topical.”  Remember, when we allow the fabulists who divide people into neat “races” to hold sway in government, we start getting crazy people ranting about “White supremacy” (which would require laws to enforce, but never mind.  In their heads it’s anyone white-looking looking at anyone else of any other “race” crosseyed.  And when we have got to the point that opposition to Islam is considered “Racist” everything is a race.  Which only fuels the crazies who do think the fact they can’t tan makes them all that and fifty cents.  Which then fuels the commies….  Which gets us where we are.  They should fear, really, that normal people get pissed off enough to tell them to sit down and stop driving each other crazy.  With lead.  Of course, IMHO, since they have the right to demonstrate and be crazy, we should make them do it in some enclosed facility.  Thunderdumb: many go in, none comes out.  But absent that lovely dream, it’s important for the rest of us to remember the sh*t they say is no more significant than UFO cultists insisting there’s been landing.-SAH*

Race Me! A Blast From The Past July 4, 2012

What is race?  If you just answered it is a competition based on who can go faster, you win a gold star.  Because the other meaning of the word is far, far more elusive.

Phillip K. Dick speaking of sanity once said something like (like because I’m too lazy to go look for a quote, and besides it’s late, my having woken up about an hour later than normal and having had to deal with stuff postponed from the trip) Sanity is an edge narrower than a foothold, sharper than the tooth of a guard dog, more elusive than a phantom.  Perhaps it doesn’t exist.  Perhaps it’s a phantom.

Now, just as with sanity there are degrees.  While Phil Dick might have considered the guy on the street corner, weedling on himself and ranting about giant ants perfectly sane, most of us would have no doubt in seeing him for total nuts.  And while you can look at me and my friend Amanda – who is a redhead – and go “well, I’m not sure” if you set Amanda next to someone from Papua New Guinea, you’ll probably go “okay, they have different sets of inherited characteristics.” And you’d be right.  Heck, we all have different sets of inherited characteristics.  I’m fairly sure my brother and I inherited characteristics each from one side of the family.

So, how do we define race?  How do you go “you have this and that characteristic and that other therefore you’re this race.”  If you’re saying “I know your race when I see you” – go sit in the corner and think about your misdeeds.  I’m impressed over and over again by how many American blacks would be immediately and instinctively considered white in other countries.  Perhaps not Obama – although it depends on the country and the circumstances – but Jeremiah Wright?  Oh, for heaven’s sakes, there wouldn’t even be any hesitation.  The man looks Portuguese.  He doesn’t even look like one of the darker – still white – Portuguese.

What we consider black (I refuse to use African-American for the same reason I wouldn’t call myself Portuguese-American – and I got here yesterday. Because the American part is what counts.  Besides, African-American is not a race, it’s an origin.  If Dave had come to the US instead of OZ he could damn well call himself African-American.  Not that he would)in the US would pass unnoticed as Caucasian most places in the world.  (Maybe not Germany or Scandinavia.)

Did you know that if you put an afro on me and I have a tan, I am functionally black?  No?  Well, I was for most of the seventies, and this in Portugal, where race distinction requires a deeper tan and more African features.  And yet, three of my four grandparents were blue/green eyed and two were blond.  And the features don’t even all come from the same side.

Are you under the impression there is some set of genes that makes a race or another?  Well…  There aren’t.  There are some genetic defects that make it fairly sure you belong to one race – or sub-race – but that’s about it.  Even genetic testing at the level we have it can’t say for sure that you don’t have any x blood, just that you PROBABLY don’t.  That the genes you inherited don’t have traces of x doesn’t mean one of your siblings or cousins doesn’t.  We found out recently for instance that my sons have way more Amerindian blood than we thought, because Robert has some health problems that trace to that – however Dan has always considered himself anglo-Irish, and he just doesn’t tan.  If you put him under the sun long enough he’ll turn a slightly less blue-tint shade of pale.

Race is in fact a phantom.  It is also a survival of the human instinct for tribalism.  Throughout history “race” has applied to – not a set of genetic characteristics – but “my tribe” vs. another tribe.  If you’re my tribe you’re probably my cousin and look somewhat like me.  If you are another tribe, you look different.  That’s the earliest definition of race.  Later it extended to national unit and at the time that national units were sharpening their stories, to be accepted as valid, and you can read Nineteenth century about the Portuguese race and the English race and the Irish race.

And now…  And now we have the present system, in which the government uses race to divide and conquer.  In the name of righting injustices and banishing the increasingly more invisible specter of racism, they are looking for race in all the wrong places.  For instance, my maiden name now makes me a different race.  Which is interesting, because for years it didn’t.  My maiden name is Marques de Almeida (it is common in Portugal to do this sort of thing because there are very few family names, comparatively, so Marques de Almeida is a different descent line from say Soares de Almeida or…  You get the point.) If I had spelled that with a z when I became a citizen, I’d have been immediately and without blinking Hispanic, Latina or whatever you want to call it this week.  But I spelled it with an s and therefore I was white.  Now the feds say I’m Latina anyway.  Well and good.  But how does a letter make me a different race?  And what difference does it make, anyway, when at least one branch of the family came from near enough Spain that with one thing and another (and yet another) I probably have a lot of Spanish ancestors (not that I’ll admit to it for sure.  Not under torture.  I mean… Spaniards! – I’m joking, I swear.)

It is possible that you can’t eradicate tribalism from the human soul.  And if you can, I’m not the one to say the federal government should set about doing it.  They’ve already gone too far towards doing that and, like most attempts at changing the human soul with the blunt mallet of statism, it has backfired horribly.

Yes, black people in America have a troubled history – of which the government and the entertainment industry makes a point of reminding them every time they turn around.  So what?  Are they the only people taken slave in the history of the world?

Believe it or not, a lot of Americans believe this.  I once sat through a speech given by a Catholic Bishop – A BISHOP, not a parish priest – who decided to hang his point on the day of the speech being the day of two saints who were slave and mistress (both women.)  I can’t remember their names, but back in Roman times, slave and owner converted to Christianity and died for it.  What was the theme of the Bishop’s sermon?  Racism.  And as he spoke it became obvious this man, who SURELY somewhere along the line studied history, assumed – unthinking – that the slave was black.  She might have been, but it’s unlikely.  From the time period it is far more likely she was blond and blue eyed, while her mistress was somewhat more melanin enhanced.

But American schools don’t teach this.  They don’t teach that each and everyone of us has ancestors who were enslaved – that slavery was an evil that stalked humanity UNTIL the industrial revolution freed us.   Nor that most people were enslaved by people who looked just like them.

I once asked a teacher why not and was told that teaching that – though it’s true – would be racist.  Because singling out people who tan easily, have curly hair and might have recent slave ancestry and telling them they are the ONLY ONES who were ever enslaved is not racist (besides being a lie.)  And apparently it builds their self esteem.  You know, self-esteem is built on being a victim, which makes you virtuous, right?  If I told you “You were beat up by everyone in kindergarten, even the little girl on crutches” it immediately makes you feel powerful, doesn’t it?

No.  It makes you feel like you need protection and therefore it serves the government’s ends, not yours.  Which is why true history of slavery is NOT taught in schools.  Not to save anyone’s “self esteem.”

Phantom.  We’ve given them cart blanche to hunt a phantom. Should we allow our government to spend money and resources pursuing a phantom?  What’s next?  We’re going to give them a mandate to ferret alien landings?  Look, that probably would be better.  At least, it would be less harmful.  This race thing which of course the government sees as a means to win power by pitching a set of their bosses – the people – against the other has now become silly season.  When you say things like “unemployed” is a code word for black, you’ve entered nuts territory.  You don’t even deserve to be tarred and feathered, just pointed at and laughed, because you just crossed that edge of Dick’s definition and proved you’re insane.

In an increasingly more race-mixed America – and world – race is becoming harder and harder to track down.  You see, it’s not easy to pin.  The child of blond people can have black hair – a recessive gene surfacing.  Dan and I could theoretically produce a blond, blue eyed child.  Actually it’s not even that rare, in Portugal, for a family of Mediterranean looking people to throw out a blond child.  We had a couple of blond sheep among my cousins, one of whom could be my twin, except for blond hair and blue eyes.

What you have to remember is this: unless your ancestors come from a very small place and have been isolated for thousands of years, you probably have ancestors from all over the world.

One of my belly laughs on the DaVinci Code is that if Jesus and Mary Magdalen TRULY had had children and any of those lines survived, the descendants wouldn’t be the kings of France – the descendants would be ALL OF US.  Heck, if any of Shakespeare’s descendants survived (well, not from his wife, obviously, but for heaven’s sake, the man worked away from home a good deal) there is a good chance most of us in the anglosphere are descended from him.

We are of a randy species that never really made a distinction based on skin color or much of anything else when it comes to giving someone a two-penny upright.  And lost travelers, ship wrecked sailors, prisoners of war and heaven knows what else, have ensured that enough of that occurred to keep us one species.  Yes, people from Scandinavia can make babies with people from Sub-Saharan Africa, and that means that some gene exchange has kept on occurring.  (We’ve found that species – defined as unable to have viable offspring – occurs in far fewer generations than we previously imagined.) [It wouldn’t mean that someone from Sub-Saharan Africa made it to Sweden every few thousand years, either – just that a lot of someone’s made it to Northern Africa, and then those in turn made it to the Mediterranean and…  Genetic exchange on the retail plan.]

Now, with international travel, more of it occurs.  And meanwhile government bureaucrats are looking for racial characteristics and code words and unconscious racism under your bed and mine and trying to convince us that the way to eliminate racism is to keep emphasizing different characteristics of some sub-group.  Because you know, if we start saying “There’s nothing wrong with redheads” and “redheads are people too” and “you bought carrots.  It means you hate redheads” it will foster integration and good will and not cause EVERYONE to do a double take every time they see a redhead AND CERTAINLY not cause everyone to be afraid to mention “carrot” or “orange” near a redheaded friend.

They think we’re stupid, and they’re trying to make us insane.

I don’t know about you, but I personally am tired of it.  I’m ready to go under the bed with the fumigation equipment – for ants.  Today’s emergency – and if I find any government bureaucrats there, I’ll laugh at them.  Which is what we all need to start doing.

And as for race…  My parents told me I was human.  (Though for a while they weren’t sure.)  I choose to believe them.