Dave Freer Defends Jon Del Arroz

Mad Genius, Dave Freer has written a curious reply to me in the comments of the Stir the Pot article I linked to previously. It’s particularly odd because he’d spent the previous few comments to me telling me that I had been banned from MGC but he was unable to say when or who by. Having not commented there for awhile, I think he must have assumed I’d been banned rather than just having lost interest. I’ll put aside the irony of ban-happy-anti-banners for the time being.

Here’s Dave’s remarkable defence in which he addresses me directly.

“Camestros’s rationalization: ‘ – Jon wanted publicity, joining SFWA and joining Worldcon were for publicity and being banned has gained him more. He hasn’t suffered in the least and zero harm was done to him. Worldcon avoids a headache. It was actually a win-win for both parties.’

Camestros rationalization translated to current affairs: ‘The Rohingya wanted to be citizens of a state, not stateless, untermensch in Burma. The Burmese government decided to ethnically cleanse them from Burma: Now, as refugees, some have been able to migrate to Australia where they can become citizens and not untermensch. It’s actually a win-win for both Burma and the Rohingya.’

No Camestros. It was a lose for JDA, who lost his opportunity to network and, as it is his home area, do so relatively cheaply, as well as damaging his local status. That was a cost free win for WorldCon. At this point he went public about it, and retrieved some of the willful they had done. Rather like the refugee getting a better life in Australia… not what he’d wanted, or would have happily gone through to get, but better than WorldCon gave him. WorldCon on the other hand ended up with egg on their face again, and I suspect substantive costs. So their cost free win became an expensive lose. So it became WorldCon lose: JDA gets a different reward — not because WorldCon were trying to achieve some fair win:win outcome, but because their attempt to have a win:lose backfired on them.”

Well, no. Rape, murder, assault and the destruction of home and property are not a good ‘translation’ of Jon’s situation. Nor is the chance of being resettled in Australia such that it is (see for example https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/19/australia-offers-pay-rohingya-refugees-return-myanmar ) somehow redress the horrors that the Rohingya’s have faced.

It really does sadden me the extent to which the remnants of the Sad Puppies and Superversive are willing to try and exploit other people’s genuine suffering to cast themselves as victims. Above is one example, the repeated attempt to exploit child-safety and claims of child abuse to try and score debate points is another and frankly appalling.

People treating child abuse as a joke or to make snarky remarks? Please stop. Using mass murder and ethnic cleansing as a way of making cheap shots? No. If the intent is to convince me that the comment section of MGC is not somewhere I would want to be then, well that certainly will convince me but what comments like that are, aside from trivialising those issues in a way that unwittingly helps abusers, is a kind of psychological self-harm. It does damage to yourself – it undermines your own capacity to be a good person. Be *better* than that.

To return to Jon. As I’ve pointed out – joining the SFWA and Worldcon were publicity stunts. Everybody knows that. It isn’t a mystery. Pretending that they weren’t is just silly. Jon is not short of places to ‘network’ and if MGC is to be believed then Worldcon is a poor place to do so. MGC has spent years now saying how terrible Worldcon is and how they don’t deserve money – Dave Freer can’t now claim that Jon was harmed by not having an opportunity to turn up. Nor, despite the offensive analogy used above, is there any evidence that Jon has IN ANYWAY been harmed. He’s fine.