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Agent fired from literary agency for using Parler and Gab

newsweek.com

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Re: Agent fired from literary agency for using Parler and Gab

#501

Post by boomboomsubban »

tomcam wrote: post #460
boomboomsubban wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zero sources provided. There's a link that looks like it should go to the twitter post, but is a list of Newsweek stories about twitter. And the posts are apparently now private. So what did you judge this article on?

I judge this particular article as poorly sourced for the same reason you do. I do not judge the article for the religion of the publisher. I never read Newsweek. I thought it was long gone. But now that I know it’s there, I shall continue to judge its merits based on what they publish, not what the supposed political beliefs of the owner or staff happen to be.

Really? You seemed pretty willing to defend a Christian (cult?) publisher by completely ignoring the faults of the article to attack criticism based on their religion. Knowing if a publisher has a clear incentive can help determine how accurate and well-sourced their claim is.

Re: Agent fired from literary agency for using Parler and Gab

#502

Post by ecf »

dmingod666 wrote: post #259

I just find it comical that liberals went from being happy peace loving hippies, to being uptight ultra-orthodox in their thinking and have this deep urge everyone must just comply. I jokingly like to call it the ultra-orthodox church of the right. Everyone should be "good" with my exact definition of good, in thinking, feeling, actions and reactions to things.

It’s entertaining to read people like you and your exaggerated posts about the world coming to an end after a reporter was fired after their reputation was put into question.

Re: Agent fired from literary agency for using Parler and Gab

#503

Post by paperwasp42 »

Veen wrote: post #494
hluska wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you actually read his interview though? If you’re going to mock your entire genre, you should at least be accurate. Otherwise, critics will rightly point out that you’re writing a genre you don’t know. When you add in that second quote, it’s even more obvious that he doesn’t know his genre. The dude wrote some books at a team with YA was all the rage and got a film deal out of it. He made some godawful marketing…

It's beyond my comprehension that anyone can believe that it was a reasonable response to some anodyne literary criticism. Hunger Games is rubbish. It's OK to say so. It's not OK to behave like a vicious lunatic because someone said the books and genre you like are rubbish. If you do lose your shit over it, then you are at best infantile and at worst mentally ill. The reaction might be predictable, but it's not defen…

>If you do lose your shit over it, then you are at best infantile and at worst mentally ill.

The very sad, unfortunate thing is that a lot of these authors are indeed mentally ill. A lot of the ring-leaders of these mobs openly embrace their mental illness as a personality trait (ie: listing it in their Twitter bios).

It leads to this bizarre environment where their reactions are, medically speaking, insane (ie: the reaction of someone in bipolar mania, the reaction of someone suffering from paranoia or extreme anxiety.) But there are so many insane reactions, that it becomes normalized.

And then people who don't struggle with mental illness start to mimic the insane behavior, because hey, everyone else is doing it! And it's now the best way to get internet points, collect followers, and get some profitable attention to your own books.

Re: Agent fired from literary agency for using Parler and Gab

#504

Post by esja »

_o0rc wrote: post #464
esja wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not an opinion, it’s basic logic and arithmetic. Shrinking the hiring pool by eliminating both Trump voters and also the non-Trump voters who don’t like the implications of the question. That’s a very large negative and is based on math, not opinion.

I'm not sure that I share the assumptions here about the distribution of talent throughout the American voting population, in particular given that the venn diagram of the tech hiring pool and the American voting population is not a circle.

Make a list of the distinct demographic categories in your hiring pool, ordered by size. You may be surprised. Depending on location and role, “Trump Voter and offended non-Trump Voter” could easily be second only to “Male non-Trump voter”, i.e. ahead of “Female non-Trump voter”. In many places it would certainly be the largest distinct demographic. That should give you pause.

Unless you define “tech hiring pool” as “recent college grads living in the Bay Area”. But even there the numbers are material.

Re: Agent fired from literary agency for using Parler and Gab

#505

Post by kls »

enkid wrote: post #456
forgingahead wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if you're asking in good-faith, your comment history shows a history of "Sea-lioning" (a term I just learned myself today): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning From the original web-comic: http://wondermark.com/1k62/

This is really messed up. I have doubts about what other people say, but I try to reserve judgement about those things. When them make claims that I haven't seen any evidence for, I ask for their evidence so I can understand where they are coming from, but make my own assessment about the truth. I am not badgering anyone, but I refuse to let people make claims without evidence, if it is 1.) it's a statement of fact,…

Funny I have a new red flag word, it used to be on the internet when you saw the first reference to someone being a Nazi you knew to start taking a critical look at what the accuser was saying but we have invented so many of them now to try to create one word labels to dismiss other peoples positions, stuff like gaslighting, dog whistling now I have to look for sea lioning. What these all have in common is they try to project negative light on the person they are used against and make the reader view their information negatively. It's absurd to me, that asking for some reference and citation to the subject at hand, now has a label word to dismiss it, out of hand. It's been a while since I have been in higher education, but IIRC citation and references where pretty much the basis of research and publication of ideas.

Re: Agent fired from literary agency for using Parler and Gab

#506

Post by rayiner »

profunctor wrote: post #450
eplanit wrote: post #400

The Left is using psychological projection as a technique. They accuse their opponents of doing exactly what they themselves are doing. They'll call you a fascist while they burn books. They'll call you racist while accusing you of "white privilege". Like you say, they'll destroy people's lives, based on racial hatred, while accusing those people of racial hatred. Domestic terrorism.

There is a clear difference between racism and acknowledging white privilege. White privilege simple describes one way in which racism manifests itself. If you can't tell the difference between a KKK member and someone says that people with white names getting called back for job interviews more than people with black names is white privilege then you are willfully ignorant. It is not racist to say that someone benef…

I'm fairly educated on these things, and I'm a racial minority married to a white woman with mixed kids, and I'm still not sure I understand what people mean when they refer to "white privilege."

I get that there is a distinct cultural bias against Black people (what people call "anti-Blackness"). Living in the south this was quite apparent to me. This is structural in nature, and quite distinct from normal majority/minority dynamics.

But I don't perceive any similar "white privilege." To go to your resume example, I've got a last name that's definitely Muslim, but I've never perceived any sort of difference in response on that basis. (And in myriad areas, from income policing to health, statistically I'm likely to enjoy advantages compared to white people.) I think the concept of "white privilege" is actually a conceptual error that comes from generalizing Black-white racial dynamics to a multi-ethnic society.

Also, to address your point about the KKK member, the left uses "racism" to mean a lot more than just that. Based on that expansive definition of "racism" I'd qualify use of phrases like "unbearable whiteness" as "racism": https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/01/the-unbearable-white...

Re: Agent fired from literary agency for using Parler and Gab

#507

Post by paperwasp42 »

hluska wrote: post #475
Udik wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find those quotes absolutely normal, what's wrong with them?

You should maybe start off with his interview with Publisher’s Weekly. He said a couple of things about the YA genre that just aren’t true. The biggest one was that he seems to think it doesn’t take a lot of brains to write YA whereas his book is somehow special. That interview was the first time that anyone had taken any notice of Bergstrom. So then, everyone read his excerpt. (Incidentally, that’s a bad flow in wri…

>YA is about disproportionate reactions. That’s essentially marketing.

I think you are entirely missing the point of these comments, which is: the "disproportionate reactions" of the YA community are hateful, bizarre, mob-like, and often dip into censorship.

You're also stating that the "genre's fans" are to blame. As the comments above clearly state, the criticism in this thread is toward the professional authors who take part in these mobs. Not the "young people."

Re: Agent fired from literary agency for using Parler and Gab

#508

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

skinkestek wrote: post #461
evilsetg wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is what unions are for. Powerless alone but strong together.

I've been anti union for almost my entire life as you cannot really be a member of a union without at the same time supporting a number of unrelated cases that I disagree wildly with. That said I am starting to feel that we could need something like unions, only they should avoid messing with international affairs, avoid supporting any political parties and stick to working for their members directly.

> avoid supporting any political parties

Unions represent their workers and by extension must advocate politically for workers' rights.

How can a union fight for workers' rights if they're barred from political activity?

If companies can engage in political activity, it follows that workers' unions are just as entitled.

Re: Agent fired from literary agency for using Parler and Gab

#509

Post by gnicholas »

_o0rc wrote: post #462
gnicholas wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO it would show exceedingly bad judgment to ask someone how they voted in an interview. I wouldn’t categorically refuse to hire such a person, but it would be a strike against.

I understand that perspective, but it doesn't affect my position. I'm free to choose who I work for, and I wouldn't choose to work for someone who found the question disqualifying. I get to define my own utility function.

Sure, you're free to choose your employer however you wish, and there are plenty of tech companies whose executives didn't vote for Trump.

But you may find that many executives — including those who did not vote for Trump — are not interested in hiring people who believe they are entitled to know how their colleagues/bosses voted.

Re: Agent fired from literary agency for using Parler and Gab

#510

Post by kls »

tptacek wrote: post #399
nemothekid wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think it’s fair to disparage someone because they don’t share your political views. tptacek hasnt changed extremely; you just never knew. I’ve been following him on Twitter for years; and I don’t believe he had changed at all - rather HN has had more political stories as the tech sector grew.

The irony is that my friends on the left say the same thing about me (it's a rough time to be a "liberal" and not a "leftist", even though we apparently managed to take control of all the levers of power and should be reveling in our ascendancy). Anyways, this is yet another reason to flag political stories on Hacker News! It blows to lose the ability to enjoy someone else's writing because you learn too much about t…

I know you have been on the site a little longer than I have, but I have always assumed we where of around the same genesis of digital nomads that arrived here in the second wave. Which leads me to have made some assumptions about over the years when I read your post. If they are correct, then we hold the many of the same liberal views, the next wave of HN'ers see the world very different from what the majority on the site did in the second wave of newcomers. It's not the same liberalism and I completely understand what you are saying about your friends on the left thinking the same thing. People on the right think I am a hippy people on the left think I am ready to start goose stepping and I just want everyone to be happy and live in peace, without the government mandating it.
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