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“We were told to vet nominees for work focusing on China, Taiwan, Tibet, or other topics that may be an issue in China and, to my shame, I did so,” said Lacey,

• Dalewyn 3y ago
  >But does anyone have a plan for rectifying the situation with authoritarianism in that part of the world that does not involve hundreds of millions of people trying to kill each other? Cordon off that part of the world and leave them to their devices. The old saying goes: You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.
  • ilaksh 3y ago
    That's not currently possible because all of the best devices come out of the border between that part and the rest (Taiwan). So we can't leave the devices. We need them. I think this ties into the $7 trillion Altman quest a bit. Maybe if you build enough reactors and chip fabs then the world becomes safer?
    • yieldcrv 3y ago
      We take those $50bn aid packages requests, and invest it into a state side semiconductor supply chain instead and then we can ignore the idea of China invading China forever. Literally 180+ countries operating with that specific level of empathy right this moment, let’s meet parity with them. Given the clamoring for semiconductors right now, a more expensive state side will sell like hotcakes. I guarantee you this won’t be seen as controversial in the world that exists after we did that. We’re going to look back at this time and think “lol what”
      • deleted 3y ago
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      • ProjectArcturis 3y ago
        Swear off defending Taiwan, let millions of people die when China sees weakness and invades, but it's cool because we got chips bro.
        • yieldcrv 3y ago
          Meet parity with 180+ countries level of empathy until our internal infrastructure meets parity with other developed nation’s 21st century level of advances.
          • PaulHoule 3y ago
            Calling any US airport a "third-world" airport is an insult to the third world.
            • deleted 3y ago
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            • yieldcrv 3y ago
              Uniquely, we have the resources for that not to be the case. We could have the best infrastructure of any nation, across the entire continent and far flung extremities Just held up by a lack of leadership, lack of consensus, and paranoia
        • Zpalmtree 3y ago
          this but unironically
      • light_hue_1 3y ago
        Yup. Because having no allies, no one to back us up in the international stage, no access to resources, no trading partners, just a world united against us is totally a logical way to live. That won't have any negative consequences for a country that depends on both imports and exports. When did the Trump possy arrive at HN?
  • onethought 3y ago
    [flagged]
    • toyg 3y ago
      Wut? China is not Japan, they were never in splendid isolation - they were taken advantage of in periods of weakness, like any other country out there was taken advantage of by someone (including China) at some point.
      • onethought 3y ago
        Yes, they were. The opium wars were about the West forcing China to allow more western interests in China. It wasn't isolation like Japan, but it was heavily restricted access.
  • deleted 3y ago
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  • cookie_monsta 3y ago
    > Cordon off that part of the world and leave them to their devices. Lol. If the US couldn't even boycott little old Cuba into regime change, what chance do they have with China?
  • justinclift 3y ago
    > Cordon off that part of the world and leave them to their devices. Who would cordon them off? The US probably couldn't due to their extreme manufacturing dependency on China. China's friends and allies clearly wouldn't cordon them off, and some of them share land borders with China. China also has a substantial coastline, which adds even more complication.
• themacguffinman 3y ago
  > Sounds like they were scared into actually overdoing the censorship. They were scared into doing the censorship. Saying they overdid the censorship implies there is an acceptable level of censorship that they could have done. And why does anyone have to have a plan for rectifying China's authoritarianism? It's up to China to do that. In the meantime, we can incentivize China by refusing to whitewash their behavior with prestigioius cultural awards. You don't get to have cultural prestige while you destroy culture with authoritarianism.
  • persnickety 3y ago
    I don't know, maybe some people are not fine sitting around waiting for the bully to reform while the bully keeps bullying.
    • themacguffinman 3y ago
      I'm not fine with that either, I think it's essential to rectify the bullying by protecting countries & organizations like the one behind the Hugo Awards from being bullied. But that is different from rectifying the bully, which I'm sure you already know is extremely costly and difficult.
      • persnickety 3y ago
        While that is the issue discussed here, authoritarianism hurts those trapped as part of the system the most. It's diffcult to protect the system without directly affecting the system.
  • AceJohnny2 3y ago
    This is really a case study demonstrating how authoritarian regimes enforce their power. Have trigger-happy and excessive punishments to violations will scare the rest of the population into self-enforcing the rules.
    • mrguinea 3y ago
• idlewords 3y ago
  You can't solve the world's problems at a sci-fi conference, but an easy first step is not to pre-emptively censor on behalf of anyone.
  • bdw5204 3y ago
    An easy first step would be to not hold a sci-fi conference in a totalitarian dictatorship. Why couldn't they have just held it in Japan or South Korea or Taiwan instead?
    • lukev 3y ago
      Because the site of Worldcon is selected by members (i.e, sci-fi fans) of which China has _many_. In fact, this whole debacle has hurt them the most since it seems many/most Chinese authors were excluded by default since the amateur self-appointed censors couldn't actually be bothered to figure out what disqualification criteria would be, just that it could be "sensitive to China."
      • wrs 3y ago
        My impression is that’s how it works. There’s never a clear definition from the government, so whoever’s doing the self-censoring has to guess (and err on the safe side).
      • domador 3y ago
        Maybe the site of Worldcon is what should be "censored" (vetted and altered) by the organizers.
        • TheCoelacanth 3y ago
          There's not really any organizers who could make that decision. The organizers are just whoever won the vote to run the conference that year. There's no actual organization that persists from year to year.
          • 3y ago
• h0l0cube 3y ago
  > But does anyone have a plan for rectifying the situation with authoritarianism in that part of the world that does not involve hundreds of millions of people trying to kill each other? Rather than solve this intractable problem, simply don't host literary awards in a country that outright censors criticism of the government (or anything really)
• __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
  I think a good start would be to develop useful technology that doesn't have any choke points for the authoritarians to capitalize on. If the internet were gossipped device-to-device at stoplights and in elevators and wherever people congregate, it would be very hard to control the flow of information. The hard part (besides the engineering) is that those are the same choke points that the capitalists capitalize on. How do you attract investors to back something that cannot be made to respect the investor's stake in it? We'd have to do it because we want it done, not because it'll make us rich later when wet turn it against its users, and that's not something we're well practiced at.
  • gtirloni 3y ago
    The conference is in person, right? What technology will solve the police showing up with guns to arrest the participants?
    • CoastalCoder 3y ago
      > The conference is in person, right? What technology will solve the police showing up with guns to arrest the participants? I don't know, but it sounds like a great idea for a SF story!
      • __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
        That's good to hear. I am writing that SF story.
      • gtirloni 3y ago
        I see what you did there and I approve ;)
    • __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
      I was responding to: > But does anyone have a plan for rectifying the situation with authoritarianism in that part of the world that does not involve hundreds of millions of people trying to kill each other? We're hackers, we solve things with hacks. But to answer your question, you'd let it be known that whatever happened on stage was a sham, and that the actual award goes to whoever was indicated by whatever consensus process was happening between the devices carried by the people at the event. But you'd let it be known after the event, so no arrests, but the signal would propagate widely enough that the state couldn't use disinformation to confuse the situation. A decisive winner, against the state's wishes. The message would be: > we can make aggregate decisions without your interference Which should sound like a bit of a threat coming from people living under the CCP. If you can coordinate an award against the wishes of your oppressor, you can coordinate less innocent things too.
• _heimdall 3y ago
  > Sounds like they were scared into actually overdoing the censorship. What does that mean exactly? What's the line for simply doing, or underdoing, the censorship?
  • jerkstate 3y ago
    “I know it when I see it” -Potter Stewart
  • eviks 3y ago
    The line is other people's reaction
• maxglute 3y ago
  >Sounds like they were scared into actually overdoing the censorship. More than 1 billion with a B, US dollars worth of deals was signed at Chengdu convention. Why incentivize with fear when that much money is on the line. Western media/businesses selling out to PRC is not new.
  • mulmen 3y ago
    Whats the marginal benefit of hosting in Chengdu? Presumably deals would have been signed at other locations too.
    • maxglute 3y ago
      More graft/kick back opporunities. Also a billion dollars? Seems unlikely considering scale of typical Hugo (as far as I'm aware).
  • eviks 3y ago
    That's easy - because there is not enough money in the world for that, there are also more people with a B, and western media not selling out is also not new
    • maxglute 3y ago
      Let's be real, incentives from being around a billion dollars is almost always enough money. Most sell out for much less. US gov has to resort to export controls to prevent folks from caving to that kind of financial incentive.
  • justinclift 3y ago
    > More than 1 billion with a B, US dollars worth of deals was signed at Chengdu convention. Where are you getting that figure from?
    • maxglute 3y ago
      >Investment deals valued at approximately 8 billion yuan ($1.09 billion) were signed during the 81st World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) held in Chengdu, Sichuan province, last week at its inaugural industrial development summit, marking significant progress in the advancement of sci-fi development in China. https://www.china.org.cn/arts/2023-10/23/content_116768150.htm https://www.china.org.cn/arts/2023-10/23/content_116768150.h... 10%2F23%2Fcontent_116768150.htm There's reporting from other write ups behind the scenes from apparent Chinese organizers talking about how the event got rapidly captured by commercial interests.
• safety1st 3y ago
  "Rectifying the situation with authoritarianism in that part of the world" was not the committee's job. Their job was something much simpler: to conduct the awards with integrity. If some external actor (say the Chinese government) makes that impossible then you cancel the awards. This comes down to McCarty and the people under him not upholding the values of the WSFS and appropriately they have now all been censured or sacked. This could have been handled much much better and while it probably looked very scary and hard to an amateur, you would think the people at this level of authority in the organization would not be amateurs. The best way for things to go down probably would have been for the committee to engage early and aggressively with Chinese authorities, state their commitment to free speech assertively, make it clear that they were going to give awards to Chinese political dissidents, and then when the Chinese responded with "you're not going to get a permit for that" or whatever other signal emerged that respecting the Hugo's principles was a no-go in China, you make that information public and you cancel the awards. If it happens early enough you move the venue, if it happens too late in the game maybe you have to do them online or something. All better options than compromising the awards. Yeah the members who chose Chengdu are not going to be happy but that's better than EVERYONE losing respect for you and that's also why you engage with Chinese authorities in good faith until they admit that this thing is gonna be a no-go... let China defend its own policies don't do it for them.
• nine_k 3y ago
  I would say that crashing and burning might be better overall, both for not dilutiong the reputation of Hugo by the allegations of caving to pressure (because pressure there was), and demonstrating the problems with China's censorship, to the Chinese themselves (who had voted for Chengdu) among others.