The post is great. I agree, except for one nitpick: I would say it /hasn't/ happened to science fiction (meaning SF book publishing). The results look similar--a proliferation of books with racially and sexually diverse characters, with much less emphasis on nerdy science puzzles--but the cause was not capitalism, but rather the conscious rejection of capitalism. Major SF publishers, and the SMOF, which basically means the people who run conventions and to a lesser extent the super-geeks who attend conventions and vote for awards and shout down or shun speakers, pre-emptively decided to eradicate "straight white male" fiction. You might not have noticed that sales of SF books have been dropping precipitously, made up for by a comparable increase in self-published SF books, including big hits like The Martian and The Bobiverse, and all the rationalist SF like Yudkowsky and There Is No Anti-Memetics Division. This is because about 20 years ago the SMOF decided to stop giving awards to straight white males, and the American publishers decided to stop promoting books by straight white males who weren't already famous, or books with "white male" themes like engineering or science; and chose instead to publish fiction that their readers didn't want as much, but that gave them more woke cred. You may not have noticed that no white male has won the Hugo for best novel, novella, novelette, or short story in the past 10 years.
> The moment the shrimp welfare people are ejected, the day they no longer have representation at the EA table, will be the day we know the movement has been compromised and the hollowing-out has begun. Walls and gates always seem far too expensive to maintain until the day you actually need them. Stay weird. Stay cringe. Never give up the shrimp.
Interesting insights and articulations as always. The only contention I’d draw is that the MCU made Marvel disgusting in its mass appeal. ;) I think the (mostly) consistent characters, stories, and character arcs add something to the genre that wasn’t there in the comics.
The post is great. I agree, except for one nitpick: I would say it /hasn't/ happened to science fiction (meaning SF book publishing). The results look similar--a proliferation of books with racially and sexually diverse characters, with much less emphasis on nerdy science puzzles--but the cause was not capitalism, but rather the conscious rejection of capitalism. Major SF publishers, and the SMOF, which basically means the people who run conventions and to a lesser extent the super-geeks who attend conventions and vote for awards and shout down or shun speakers, pre-emptively decided to eradicate "straight white male" fiction. You might not have noticed that sales of SF books have been dropping precipitously, made up for by a comparable increase in self-published SF books, including big hits like The Martian and The Bobiverse, and all the rationalist SF like Yudkowsky and There Is No Anti-Memetics Division. This is because about 20 years ago the SMOF decided to stop giving awards to straight white males, and the American publishers decided to stop promoting books by straight white males who weren't already famous, or books with "white male" themes like engineering or science; and chose instead to publish fiction that their readers didn't want as much, but that gave them more woke cred. You may not have noticed that no white male has won the Hugo for best novel, novella, novelette, or short story in the past 10 years.
I have noticed, I've been noticing for several years. :( It's tragic, and I hope other subcultures learn from our destruction.
Following from my comment on your previous post, this is a really well analysed point and well presented. You're on a roll of good posts!
> The moment the shrimp welfare people are ejected, the day they no longer have representation at the EA table, will be the day we know the movement has been compromised and the hollowing-out has begun. Walls and gates always seem far too expensive to maintain until the day you actually need them. Stay weird. Stay cringe. Never give up the shrimp.
You will perhaps be sad to know that OpenPhil is no longer funding invertebrate welfare (which includes shrimp): https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/wn5jTrtKkhspshA4c/michaeldickens-s-shortform?commentId=s2pGF6sr6oiokyiaC
I don't know much about OpenPhil, is this a major blow to the shrimp people? Are they losing what support they had?
I don’t really know, I definitely hear about then and their accomplishments a lot less than I did previously.
I mean, progressive people do know that cultural appropriation is possible
Interesting insights and articulations as always. The only contention I’d draw is that the MCU made Marvel disgusting in its mass appeal. ;) I think the (mostly) consistent characters, stories, and character arcs add something to the genre that wasn’t there in the comics.
I definitely wouldn't say disgusting! Just taken over by the monoculture, and sacrificing it's original audience as a result