Geographical Illiteracy

[kevin_standlee]

I have just had a very frustrating exchange with someone who is convinced that should Helsinki win their Worldcon bid, the convention will be invaded by an army of supporters of a certain Rabid One because his publishing company is in Finland, so of course there must be hordes of his supporters all over the country.

Look, I'm on the Montreal Worldcon bid; I'm one of the members of its Board of Directors. But I very much do not want people to vote against Helsinki just because a sociopath incorporated his business in that country. It's stupid.

I've been told that I'm not paranoid enough about the Danger of the Puppies Invading Worldcon. Well, if the danger is that big, we might as well just dissolve Worldcon right now and go crawl under our beds and suck our thumbs while curled up in a ball of fear.

Comments

[lydy.livejournal.com]

Oy. So sorry you are doomed to be the Voice of Reason so very often.

The Sociopathic One is a terrible human being. But I'm not best pleased with people who are using him to gin up their own paranoia and farm their own drama. And the idea that there are hoards of supporters in Finland suggests that this person 1) knows almost nothing about Finland and 2) knows very little about fandom. Honestly, insofar as we are in danger from puppies (and mostly we aren't), it'll be US located cons that are at risk. Puppy sadness is really a US culture war phenomena, and the rest of the world rightly stares at us with wonder and horror.