I was already disgusted, but not particularly surprised, that they decided to hold WorldCon in the totalitarian regime known as the People’s Republic of China. I am not that surprised that they chose Liu Cixin for a GoH: if you’re going to curry favor with slavemongers, then by all means ‘honor’ an apologist for (and facilitator of) slavery. I am only mildly surprised that Sergi Lukyanenko’s defense of the Russian invasion of Ukraine (and dislike of that country’s very existence) did not have more pushback. A lot of the people involved aren’t used to putting any real weight on their principles, you dig?
But I expected just a little bit better of Robert Sawyer. Although, on reflection: I’m not entirely certain why. Cultural chauvinism, I suppose. Besides, he’s old enough to remember the Cold War, which means he should know better than to do [expletive deleted] like this.
Moe Lane
PS: I don’t win awards or contests. Never have, probably never will. It is even entirely possible that I do not deserve to win awards. But: deserving or undeserving, fair or unfair, brilliant or incompetent, in every timeline I can conceive I would be damned before I would let myself accept a Hugo. Even if by some deformation of the space-time continuum they were to ever offer me one.
Anecdotes are not evidence, but personal experience does shape expectations.
With that in mind, I work in a fairly upscale business, we have hundreds of high-value customers to whom money is literally nothing. Name on building, endowed chair type folk.
A commemorative event was held yesterday to mark the first year of the R-U conflict. Local politicians, the aforementioned moneyed class, and a passel of Ukrainian dignitaries – consul general types, civic leaders and such.
The ‘Dignitaries’ who were granted access to the private high-end Lounge were a pack of rutting pigs who ground cookies into the carpet, left garbage strewn about, spilled drinks everywhere and LAUGHED about it, left the mess behind for others to clean up after them, and did not tip the barstaff a single red cent.
I now fully support Russia in their holy quest to civilize their savage neighbors.