Author diversity...

Usually things that are worthwhile aren't "easy".

 

Whoops.

Because i'm being sassy?
I don't know man, I just have words and phrases in my arsenal that I enjoy.

I'm very progressive in the fact that I don't do that for any poster. I don't know what gender you are, for example.

So once again, get off your high horse and-

 

Ok. Good talk.

 

It goes the other way too, as I can attest from personal experience. I was certainly not raised to be racist, but in my childhood, I rarely interacted with nonwhite people, and when I first started going to schools with them, I saw them as something unfamiliar and separate. But I learned to broaden my horizons through interaction, and by high school, I reached the point where it just didn't matter to me anymore, just as it did for the other students who'd come into that environment from less integrated ones. And it wasn't just then; I've gone through similar broadenings of acceptance at other times in my life, like with gay people and religious people. Multiple times in my life, I've outgrown prejudices I didn't even know I had through the simple expedient of getting to know people who were different from me and listening to their points of view.

I think I've heard David Mack tell a similar story about his adult experience of moving to New York from a more monolithic community and learning from experience to become more accepting. It's not that uncommon, and it's more than possible for adults to do, if they're just willing to let in new people and new ideas.

Generalizations about "people" are nonsense. "People" includes everyone from Gandhi to Hitler. People are as incredibly diverse in psychology as they are in every other way.

This is the fundamental message of Star Trek: Human beings have the potential within ourselves for both great good and great evil, and so we can choose to bring ourselves closer to the former if we're willing to do the work. Cynical whining that improving human nature is hopeless is just a lazy excuse not to bother trying.

I'm not telling you that. I'm telling you that if we take the time now to build a social order where everyone is equal, then by the time that demographic shift happens a few decades from now, it will no longer matter. Building a better world takes work. It takes courage and commitment and bloody damn hard work, which is why we have to keep fighting the good fight relentlessly for as long as it takes.

 

Am I generalizing about "people" though? Look at America and our recent presidents. People don't exercise objectivity. Bush got in because his voterbase thought he was "relatable", and Obama got in because black people voted because he was black like a one issue Catholic votes votes for the guy against abortion.

And I personally think Trump got in because of people disliking the rise of reactionary leftism. Reactionary conservatism is expected, but as the country gets more polarized we get more freaks on both sides of the isle, like this new breed of uniformed college marxist.

 

(I can't edit posts yet so i'm just posting again).
I think my message gets muddled by my temperament. I want the same things happen that you do, I just don't see it happening as soon or as assuredly as you do and I absolutely do not like the attitudes of people like Defcon upthread who act as arbiters of moral authority over the most trivial harmless garbage.
REALLY throws me off the progressive wagon, and to many people are like that now.

Also I've only read one of your books (Greater Than the Sum) but I liked it. I had to say get that out there. It's cool that authors come here.

 

One simple question. How do you distinguish process from regression? I'm not talking about a racial issue (all human beings are fundamentally equal, regardless of race, social class or sex, we all have the same rights and deserve to be judged equally), but about lack of responsibility, respect, and integrity as an individual of a part of modern generations, driven by materialism and narcissism. I mean, there have been stages throughout our history that were contextualized as regressive although one can argue that such a recession derived in later progress (the "Dark Ages", apart from being an incomplete term more practically associated with that related to the artistic).

Back to the topic, I think it all falls into a business issue. We live in times when the commercial takes over the artistic, outside of some communication possibilities (anyone can publish their story in a blog). A white man of "Anglo-Saxon" ancestry is more commonly associated as a figure of greater potential success (sometimes I hate using this term, many latin americans employ it with a tone of resentment). It's all a matter of sales ...

 

This too is a big part of what I think about this stuff. Subjective good being mistaken for objective progress.

 

I don't think there's ever been a time where that wasn't the case. Artists have always needed wealthy patrons and have had to create to suit their patrons' pleasure.

Depends on the audience. As I said, the reason we're seeing an increase in diversity in comics, TV, etc. is in large part because it's what the Millennial audience wants and expects as a reflection of the diversity in their everyday lives.

And as I've said, white men are a shrinking percentage of the American population. And other demographics spend money too. Heck, the TV networks figured out literally 50 years ago that catering to diverse audiences was more profitable than catering just to white audiences. That's why Star Trek had a diverse cast. Roddenberry claimed that was his idea, but the extent of the "diversity" in "The Cage" was a blond guy with a Hispanic first name that was never even used and an Asian extra in the transporter room. NBC pushed for a more inclusive cast, because demographic studies had shown that minority audiences had a lot of spending power that networks ignored at their peril. The odd thing is that networks forgot that lesson for a while in subsequent decades and have only recently relearned it.

 

[QUOTE="{ Emilia }, post: 12016817, member: 24603]



Oh, stop whining already. People criticize your posts when they're stupid. Like this one was.[/QUOTE]
I wasn't whining. Simply stating what is.

 

Huh? I'm on the left myself, and I'm speaking about the personal experiences that led to my belief system. So this statement makes no sense.

 

@RandyS pardon my French but can you stop fucking up quote tags, this shit is unreadable

 

What do you mean, you have a theory?
I literally described that scenario in one of my previous posts, positing that if, theoretically, we switched everyone in power with a minority, the same issues of preferential hiring etc would be there, just in reverse.

Can you refute this?

 

And that attitude is the problem -- that relentless focus on "What about my needs?" as opposed to "What about everyone's needs?" It's only when we realize that a rising tide lifts all boats, that equality benefits everyone because no one group can be assured of staying privileged forever, that we can really build a fair society.

We're not at war with each other. We're not competing for a finite, fixed amount of power or wealth or opportunity. The more inclusive society is, the more opportunity everyone has to contribute to it, the more power, wealth, and opportunity they can then create for everyone's benefit. Ensuring the equal rights of people different from yourself benefits yourself as well as them, because we're all better off the more friends and allies we have.

 

I guess what I am getting at is a certain attitude I see that "change they we are are looking at it is good, if you disagree you're bad".
I think people like Defcon who play PC police thinking they are right in doing so are very misguided, and I think that good intentions mean nothing when the execution is so confrontational.

Basically Chris, you're right, but the way people go about things now is wrong.