I can see why. Some people think it’s wrong not to include diverse characters, and others think it’s wrong to speak for other races (ex. colour matching voice actors to their characters). If you’re a white person who wants to write a book then I think you just need to accept that a handful of crazy people are going to get angry no matter what you do.
Sir Kazuo Ishiguro warns of young authors self-censoring out of 'fear'
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Re: Sir Kazuo Ishiguro warns of young authors self-censoring out of 'fear'
#22It's really sad that in the age of unrestricted access to information public discourse is self-restricting to avoid wrong-think and dissenting opinions. If you look at the history of intellectual progress, much of it was exactly due to unpopular opinions. Now by having one you're risking your entire career and sometimes more. This is truly the dark age of the information era.
I don't really think no one is allowed to say anything controversial anymore. Plenty of national newspapers are willing to give people front-page editorials to say things that are not mainstream. That's hardly a dark age.
Re: Sir Kazuo Ishiguro warns of young authors self-censoring out of 'fear'
#23I thought this was the reason authors often use pen names. Creating an entirely anonymous identity isn't easy but it is nice to screw up safely.
It's pretty easy, actually. You make a website with whoisguard enabled, you sign your writing with a fake name, and you decline interview requests. Bonus points if you pretend to be a different gender, like JK Rowling did. Often times the allure of being a pseudonymous person actually makes your work even more attractive.
Presumably there's some point at which fame makes it hard to conceal an identity that many are intensely curious about. But for the vast bulk of authors, pretty much no one is going to do even casual sleuthing to try to find you out.
Of course, that may limit some of your promotional opportunities but I don't know why it would be hard in general.
Re: Sir Kazuo Ishiguro warns of young authors self-censoring out of 'fear'
#24I thought this was the reason authors often use pen names. Creating an entirely anonymous identity isn't easy but it is nice to screw up safely.
until the NYT outs you, see for example what happened with the slate star codex:
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/statement-on-new-york-...
Re: Sir Kazuo Ishiguro warns of young authors self-censoring out of 'fear'
#25I thought this was the reason authors often use pen names. Creating an entirely anonymous identity isn't easy but it is nice to screw up safely.
Just need a bit of NLP to figure out identity from writing style, similar to how JK Rowling's pseudonymous identity was uncovered.
Re: Sir Kazuo Ishiguro warns of young authors self-censoring out of 'fear'
#26It's really sad that in the age of unrestricted access to information public discourse is self-restricting to avoid wrong-think and dissenting opinions. If you look at the history of intellectual progress, much of it was exactly due to unpopular opinions. Now by having one you're risking your entire career and sometimes more. This is truly the dark age of the information era.
Who knew, the age of unrestricted access meant that others would have unrestricted access to our secrets too
Re: Sir Kazuo Ishiguro warns of young authors self-censoring out of 'fear'
#27It's really sad that in the age of unrestricted access to information public discourse is self-restricting to avoid wrong-think and dissenting opinions. If you look at the history of intellectual progress, much of it was exactly due to unpopular opinions. Now by having one you're risking your entire career and sometimes more. This is truly the dark age of the information era.
There is no era of Western history where unpopular opinions were more acceptable than today. In the past, dissenting opinions voiced loudly were often punished by blacklisting or excommunication or prison or death. Now, you get yelled at on Twitter and some companies won't work with you.
Re: Sir Kazuo Ishiguro warns of young authors self-censoring out of 'fear'
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's pretty easy, actually. You make a website with whoisguard enabled, you sign your writing with a fake name, and you decline interview requests. Bonus points if you pretend to be a different gender, like JK Rowling did. Often times the allure of being a pseudonymous person actually makes your work even more attractive.
How do you protect your intellectual property? As soon as there is any kind of legal battle your pseudonymity will be gone.
Banksy has managed to preserve his pseudonymity through a corporate structure.
Re: Sir Kazuo Ishiguro warns of young authors self-censoring out of 'fear'
#29It's really sad that in the age of unrestricted access to information public discourse is self-restricting to avoid wrong-think and dissenting opinions. If you look at the history of intellectual progress, much of it was exactly due to unpopular opinions. Now by having one you're risking your entire career and sometimes more. This is truly the dark age of the information era.
Everything rises and falls. Even in the west we've had the inquisition, the Stasi in the DDR, McCarthyism in the US. Hopefully the modern trend towards censorship and rightthink will encourage the future generations to appreciate freedom of speech and ideas
Re: Sir Kazuo Ishiguro warns of young authors self-censoring out of 'fear'
#30I am quite interested that people worry cancel culture is preventing intellectual progress more than copyright.
Copyright, patents, and other forms of intellectual property have an absolute legal stranglehold on whatever you're trying to do. "Cancel culture", which honestly I've never felt like has limited me, just puts peer pressure on people.
Why is the outrage towards IP not as strong as it is towards cancel culture?