Re:Banned by the Publisher
by Someone1234 on Wednesday February 10, 2016 @04:30PM
(#11076182)
They're using "ban a book" to elicit a specific response here. Look; a publisher has the right to publish or not any work they wish for any reason they wish.
If the publisher had turned around and tried to stop the author from publishing this themselves (via indie routes) or going to another publisher, sure, I'd agree that that would be akin to trying to "ban" something.
But the reality is here that the publisher just opted out of publishing this specific works, as is their right. Sorry, author, but you sound bitter. Move on.
Re:Banned by the Publisher
by ricketycricket on Wednesday February 10, 2016 @05:09PM
(#11076490)
The publisher absolutely has the right to not publish the book. It's also very possible the author is being a bit unreasonable and bitter. We are only getting one side of the story.
However, I read this more as a warning that there is a bias in the publishing world and to not look at currently-published works in the aggregate as an unbiased body of work.
Re:Banned by the Publisher
by scandox on Wednesday February 10, 2016 @04:32PM
(#11076201)
I'm curious why the author's agent didn't just approach other mainstream publishers with it. After all, if he's a critical and commercial success with HarperCollins then it's very likely that someone, somewhere will take a serious interest. Now I know that the publishing world has conglomerated a lot in the last 20 years...but still there are other players.
edit: and editors at other imprints owned by the same group will often take a different view.
Re:Banned by the Publisher
by Mtinie on Wednesday February 10, 2016 @04:47PM
(#11076322)
This article gives us one passionate side of the situation. It would be nice to be a fly on the wall during the lead up conversations between HarperCollins and Mr. Cole's agent prior to the final decision being made.
Perhaps the story is as straight forward as Mr. Cole represented it; that HarperCollins declined to publish the novel because of the nature of the AI conflict described. Personally, it strikes me as oddly simplistic, and lacking in other context, given the success that Mr. Cole's previous work brought the publisher.
Re:Banned by the Publisher
by luketheobscure on Wednesday February 10, 2016 @04:58PM
(#11076407)
Interesting how I felt total empathy for the author up until about 2/3 of the way through, when I started to wonder if he was, perhaps, just a jerk. Probably somewhere around when he started comparing his publisher to the Nazis.
Re:Banned by the Publisher
by MCRed on Wednesday February 10, 2016 @06:20PM
(#11077009)
He didn't compare the publisher to nazis. He talked about one of the essential components that allowed the nazis to have power in germany.
The nazis existed. They were real.
I don't like the modern fad of holocaust revisionism that says "anyone who talks about the nazis is ipso facto unable to make an argument (because the nazis were not real and there is not possibility that there could be a valid comparison between the conditions that allowed them to exist and conditions in current society-- because the nazis weren't real.)"
Re:Banned by the Publisher
by amyjess on Wednesday February 10, 2016 @04:15PM
(#11076025)
> In other words, they were attempting to effectively ban a book because they felt the ideas and concepts I was writing about were dangerous and more importantly, not in keeping with their philosophical ideals.
No, they were exercising their private property rights to publish only what they want to publish.
Re:Banned by the Publisher
by erbo on Wednesday February 10, 2016 @04:25PM
(#11076119)
Larry Correia says [1] that "ban" would not be the right word here, but what they were doing was effectively censoring his work. And the reason they did so, in the instant case, was because of politics. Period.
Re:Banned by the Publisher
by deong on Wednesday February 10, 2016 @04:46PM
(#11076315)
To which I'd say, "And?"
The fact that you say something controversial doesn't change the relationship between an author and a publisher from "I'll publish your book if I think it's good and will sell" into "I'll publish your book absolutely because it makes a political stand".
He's free to find another publisher, or as in this case, self-publish. This seems about as clear a case of "move along, nothing to see here" as the internet is capable of providing.
Re:Banned by the Publisher
by Onolo on Wednesday February 10, 2016 @05:54PM
(#11076846)
If the publisher chose not to publish the book because they don't think its good, and will sell, that is one thing. If the publisher chose not publish the book, because they agree with the politics of it, that I would dislike.
As far as I can tell no one gains in a society where the right refuses to work with the left and vis-versa. That just makes society harder for everyone.
What is far worse is when one side wields disproportionate power. Fiction has long played a role in advancing social morals. Imagine a case where in a society that was very, very homophobic. If books that featured lgbqt in a good light were not published... and it was considered okay because that is the publishers right, that would be a bad thing.
Finally, I think our rules on situations like this should be abstracted away from poltiical or social beliefs. It is easy to say that we can judge the publishers in my hypothetical wrong, because homophobia is bad, but the publishers in this actual instance okay, because there is nothing wrong with being pro-choice.
However there is a danger in that, and this is largely inspired by http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html, but we have been pretty bad as society and individuals at judging what is good. Which is why I am hesitant to be okay with censoring something I disagree with, it may very well turn out that I am wrong.
Re:Banned by the Publisher
by chc on Wednesday February 10, 2016 @05:04PM
(#11076453)
You seem to be responding to a different situation than the one presented here. At least according to the OP, this author wasn't taking a political stand — it was just a small plot detail. They didn't even ask him to change it. Somebody saw something they didn't like and attempted to punish the author in the most severe way available to them. This is their right, of course, but you have the right to do lots of lousy things, including burn books.
Re:Banned by the Publisher
by mikeash on Wednesday February 10, 2016 @05:27PM
(#11076642)
They did ask him to change it. And the "punishment" was just to not publish him. Hardly severe, given the large number of other publishers available, and now the pretty good option of going without a publisher altogether.
"Publisher asks author to change book" hardly seems worthy of attention.
Re:Banned by the Publisher
by chc on Wednesday February 10, 2016 @05:29PM
(#11076655)
According to the author, they had already killed the book before they even sent him any notes. That seems to be the biggest part of what he found so upsetting.
Re:Banned by the Publisher
by mikeash on Wednesday February 10, 2016 @08:23PM
(#11077623)
The book was removed from the schedule, but I imagine it could have been reinstated (reschedule?) if the requested changes had been made. Certainly a dick move by the publisher if it went down like that, but the choice to change the offending section seems to have been there.
Re:Banned by the Publisher
by sleepybrett on Wednesday February 10, 2016 @04:46PM
(#11076316)
As much as this isn't an atttempt to "ban" the book it also isn't an attempt to "censor" the book. It's simply a publisher saying 'We don't want to publish this book in this form". And they could say that for any reason, including a political one.
Now, he may have signed a contract with this publisher that has the literary equivalent to a non-compete in it ( "You can only publish through us" ), but that's on him.
Re:Banned by the Publisher
by x0x0 on Wednesday February 10, 2016 @05:06PM
(#11076463)
Larry finds liberal bias in any outcome in which his results aren't what he perceives they ought to be. He also is a poor writer (imo obviously; I've half-read two books before quitting because I was bored) who likes to write superman books and is offended by any reader that prefers moderately more complex fiction than when the reader was an 8 year old child. To top it off, Larry is in the midst of a 3-year (and counting!) tantrum that the Hugos include, and sometimes give awards to, anything but straight white men. So, you know, giant grain of salt.
ps -- Daniel Wilson wrote Robopocalypse [1] which I found a good read; so there's at least one publisher in the sci-fi realm that continues to publish robot apocalypse fiction
Re:Banned by the Publisher
by erbo on Thursday February 11, 2016 @03:47PM
(#11083109)
Correia has also made a good deal of money off his books (unsurprising, since "GET PAID" is part of his core mission statement as a writer). Apparently, he's such a poor writer that people are attempting to drown him in dollars in an attempt to make him stop. ;-)
Re:Banned by the Publisher
by x0x0 on Thursday February 11, 2016 @05:07PM
(#11083691)
I have no idea about his financial results, but his ongoing tantrum that some people don't like his books would lead most observers to believe they aren't awesome. You don't generally see successful authors mocking folks who don't like their stuff.
Re:Banned by the Publisher
by dragonwriter on Wednesday February 10, 2016 @05:47PM
(#11076788)
> Larry Correia says [1] that "ban" would not be the right word here, but what they were doing was effectively censoring his work. And the reason they did so, in the instant case, was because of politics.
And, if so...which we have only his claim for, and its quite possible the publisher had other reasons, assuming its actually true that they refused it...so what? The right to make political choices about what you publish is exactly the central and most important part of the First Amendment's freedom of the press.
It does become worrying where there is a press monopoly or conspiring oligopoly preventing publication of certain political views and, so, suppressing them in the marketplace of ideas, but that's not happening here, and the evidence is the fact that his book is being published, and available through the dominant retail channel for such works.
Re:Banned by the Publisher
by erbo on Thursday February 11, 2016 @03:44PM
(#11083085)
There is a de facto conspiring oligopoly preventing publication of certain political views, which Correia knows about and mentioned in his post because he's experienced it firsthand. It's not a direct conspiracy, to be sure, but it's a de facto conspiracy because the publishing executives are all part of the same culture and have the same views.
What you're engaging in is part of the second way Correia predicted that Cole would be attacked and dismissed, namely, by quibbling over the exact definitions of "censorship" and "banned." Oh, and we have Cole's own words about why the publisher rejected the book. The publisher yanked the book of the schedule, without even asking first if Cole would revise the point that they found unacceptable.
Re:Banned by the Publisher
by dragonwriter on Thursday February 11, 2016 @05:35PM
(#11083876)
> There is a de facto conspiring oligopoly preventing publication of certain political views, which Correia knows about and mentioned in his post because he's experienced it firsthand.
There is not a conspiring oligopoly preventing publication of the political views at issue, which I know about and mention in this post because those views are in fact published in works that are available through major commercial channels.
There may be a group of major publishers with biases which result in them not publishing the views that Correia and Cole complain about being "banned", but it is not only not a "ban", but its not a conspiring (or even independently acting in the same interest -- which seems to be what you mean with the "de facto conspiracy" description) oligopoly with the power to prevent the views from being widely published and the works embodying the views from being readily available through major outlets. As is evidenced by the fact that the views are widely published, and the works containing them are readily available through major outlets. Including, emphatically, the work of Cole's that this thread concerns.
> What you're engaging in is part of the second way Correia predicted that Cole would be attacked and dismissed, namely, by quibbling over the exact definitions of "censorship" and "banned."
I absolutely agree that this is censorship. The right to censor works one publishes is central the right of freedom of the press. No quibbling there.
But when it comes to "ban", yes, I certainly disagree that with any description that this is a ban -- not only by a strict definition, but even by a loose analogy. I certainly agree that were there an alignment (conspiratorial or not) of publishers collectively wielding enough power over the market that could and did prevent certain political views from receiving wide circulation, that would be a lot like a ban. And, I'm open to the idea that, for some views, such an alignment does exist. But what happened to Cole is not evidence of anything that is even remotely similar to a ban. Because the book is being published, in a manner which makes it available through the single most significant outlet for retailing books, one which has a majority of the market for books.
> Oh, and we have Cole's own words about why the publisher rejected the book.
Cole is, obviously, not a neutral source of information on the matter.
Re:Banned by the Publisher
by tyingq on Wednesday February 10, 2016 @04:35PM
(#11076235)
The post you reference also mentions that the resulting free publicity is boosting Nick's sales of his existing books. So, at least there's some upside to his current situation.
Re:Banned by the Publisher
by erbo on Thursday February 11, 2016 @03:52PM
(#11083156)
Which is point #3 that Correia predicted would be used to attack Cole: "This is all a publicity stunt to sell more books." Correia is not necessarily condemning that, of course, but he did also warn Cole that, as a result, he is likely to be slandered by the CHORFs [1] with every vile accusation imaginable. I'll let you decide if higher book sales is sufficient compensation for having your name dragged through the mud like that.
Re:Banned by the Publisher
by pkinsky on Wednesday February 10, 2016 @04:59PM
(#11076415)
I see a few people pointing out that the book wasn't really banned, in the sense that it was not published as a direct result of government intervention. But is this really a meaningful distinction?
The book was prevented from being published in approximately the same way a book advocating communism would have been effectively banned from publication in the 1950s (via whisper campaigns, implied or explicit threats of blacklisting, etc).
edit: sometimes this is justifiable: for example, a book titled 'Hitler, Stalin, Mao Zedong and Kim Jong Un: misunderstood heroes?' would probably also be effectively banned via social pressure.
Re:Banned by the Publisher
by dragonwriter on Wednesday February 10, 2016 @05:39PM
(#11076733)
> I see a few people pointing out that the book wasn't really banned, in the sense that it was not published as a direct result of government intervention. But is this really a meaningful distinction?
Yes, there is a meaningful distinction between a publisher deciding not to publish a book, and a book being banned. While there may certainly be conditions where private action is so powerful in a given marketplace it is substantially equivalent to a government prohibition and raises the same issues, this isn't one. There are other publishers, and there has never been a time when self-publishing and bypassing major publishers -- especially for an already successful writer -- is easier.
The fact that this whole complaint is actually a promotional piece for the book, which is in fact being published through Amazon's direct publishing offering, demonstrates exactly why the distinction between a publisher choosing not to publish a book and the book actually being banned is a meaningful -- night-and-day -- distinction.
> The book was prevented from being published
No, it was, in fact, not prevented from being published. The first two sentences of the article are "I launched a book this week and I went Indie with it. Indie means I released it on Amazon via Kindle Direct Publishing."
Re:Banned by the Publisher
by pkinsky on Wednesday February 10, 2016 @06:48PM
(#11077170)
>No, it was, in fact, not prevented from being published. The first two sentences of the article are "I launched a book this week and I went Indie with it. Indie means I released it on Amazon via Kindle Direct Publishing."
Prevented from being published via established channels, then. The analogy still holds, because in the 1950s you could still publish content considered communist in photocopied zines.
Re:Banned by the Publisher
by dragonwriter on Wednesday February 10, 2016 @07:14PM
(#11077297)
> Prevented from being published via established channels, then.
Kindle Direct Publishing has been around about as long as the Kindle (they were, IIRC, announced at the same time), and is backed by the dominant online book and ebook retailer. Its a pretty well-established channel.
> The analogy still holds, because in the 1950s you could still publish content considered communist in photocopied zines.
The analogy does not, even remotely, hold, because such photocopied zines would not be available via major retail outlets, whereas Kindle Direct Publishing is directly sponsored by the dominant retail outlet.
Re:Banned by the Publisher
by Someone1234 on Wednesday February 10, 2016 @05:03PM
(#11076443)
I would absolutely agree if several publishers were colluding to make it so an author couldn't publish. That is what happened during mccarthyism.
However in this specific case we're talking about one publisher not agreeing to publish. There's no presented information to assume collusion between publishers or some larger game at play to suppress this book or the author.
I absolutely think that private organisations can effectively ban something without government intervention. I just don't think that happened here.
Re:Banned by the Publisher
by pkinsky on Wednesday February 10, 2016 @05:06PM
(#11076465)
> I absolutely think that private organisations can effectively ban something without government intervention. I just don't think that happened here.
Oh, absolutely. To be honest I'm not terribly interested in the specifics of this case, just the general idea that today, when so much communication happens on privately-owned platforms, corporate censorship is not censorship because only governments censor.
Re:Banned by the Publisher
by Onolo on Wednesday February 10, 2016 @06:02PM
(#11076906)
Even with your example I don't see any justification for such a book to be banned/censored. Maybe I am too optimistic about society but I don't think there is any realistic harm from letting such a book be published, and a larger harm of false negatives under a set of rules that would censor such books.
Re:Banned by the Publisher
by xbmcuser on Thursday February 11, 2016 @06:22AM
(#11079493)
This was mostly a business call publishing this book could make the publishers loose customers or even authors so they chose not to publish it.
The author brilliantly is taking it as a business opportunity to market as something that was banned. With the american public so divided over right and left it will get a lot of publicity.
Persoanlly I am for more people doing self publishing and not using the big 5 as that makes books cheaper for me. At the same time the topics and stories are not just those that are acceptable to particular group or ideology.
Re:Banned by the Publisher
by largehotcoffee on Wednesday February 10, 2016 @04:52PM
(#11076358)
We're in a similar situation except with Amazon being the one banning our books. I am the owner of FAKKU, an English publisher of erotic manga (Japanese comics). Despite there being a category on Amazon for our specific material and previously receiving approval to list our books behind an "Adults Only" flag, our books have been banned.
Re:Banned by the Publisher
by dragonwriter on Wednesday February 10, 2016 @05:42PM
(#11076754)
Actually, I think being blocked by a retail channel with the absolute dominance Amazon has is a lot more significant than being turned down by a publisher.
The former is a significant bar to reaching customers, the latter not so much.
Re:Banned by the Publisher
by mst on Wednesday February 10, 2016 @05:43PM
(#11076761)
Having gone to the trouble of reading said first chapter ... wut. It's the "AI sees a human do something that can be interpreted as callous, starts thinking, decides maybe this is going to be a problem" trope (and, actually, as a firmly pro-choice person I find that the human action in question being one I wouldn't condemn actually adds to the horror inherent to the trope).
The ranty and bitter tone of the author does him no favours, certainly, but taking him off the publication list before contacting him, and for something so (to my mind) frankly silly, quite understandably would feel like enough of a kick in the teeth that irrational anger is pretty understandable.
Re:Banned by the Publisher
by joesmo on Wednesday February 10, 2016 @04:53PM
(#11076363)
It's terrible but thinking Amazon is a haven from censorship is wrong. They can and will close your account for any reason or no reason at all. If they didn't agree with this idea, they'd kill the book, guaranteed.
Re:Banned by the Publisher
by parfe on Wednesday February 10, 2016 @04:56PM
(#11076391)
Why is this blatant marketing allowed on HN?
This is the same ploy as the "banned" super bowl commercial scam. Submit something obviously unacceptable and then cry foul when it gets refused hoping to get views via the media attention.
Re:Banned by the Publisher
by anotherevan on Wednesday February 10, 2016 @06:21PM
(#11077015)
Oh God. A publisher didn't like his work of fiction and perhaps acted unprofessionally and he cries about free speech and concentration camps, all in the same long winded paragraph. Cry me a river.
Free speech protects you from censorship from the government, not from a private company that doesn't like your book and so chooses not to invest their money and time in publishing it. Free speech does not mean other people have to listen to you, take you seriously, or do what you want them to.
Free speech means you can throw your little tantrum in public and the government cannot tell you to shut the fuck up. Rightly so, that is left to society in general to do.
Re:Banned by the Publisher
by griffinmb on Wednesday February 10, 2016 @04:50PM
(#11076350)
I didn't see it as anti-choice. The explanation and reality-show aspect seemed a little dumb, but I thought the core idea was really intriguing.
I feel like in Sci-Fi, there's often this dynamic between Creator/AI as a Parent/Child relationship, so the idea that a nascent artificial intelligence would perceive abortion as threatening or scary is, in my opinion, a super cool idea.
I didn't read his book, so maybe it really was just anti-choice drek. But from only reading his blog post, it sounds to me like a nugget of an interesting idea with not-as-interesting execution.
Re:Banned by the Publisher
by tedks on Wednesday February 10, 2016 @05:35PM
(#11076705)
It's anti-choice drek because it implicitly assumes personhood of a fetus, and in fact, starts an inter-species war over the assumption of personhood of a fetus.
The correct corollary between a fetus would be the uncompiled source code of an AI, or possibly an unexecuted binary. Neither are alive and certainly neither are conscious.
An AI literally exterminating humanity because "abortion is murder" is clearly self-insertion on the part of the author in a way that civil society should not tolerate any more than an AI being a white nationalist.
Re:Banned by the Publisher
by griffinmb on Wednesday February 10, 2016 @06:34PM
(#11077099)
Looking at this article more, it does seem more likely that this is an attempt at some weird anti-abortion propaganda.
That being said, I still think it's an interesting concept. I don't think that the AI assuming personhood of a fetus is inherently wrong. There are plenty of philosophical arguments about what constitutes personhood, and how that effects the topic of abortion.
Again, this is something that I think could be potentially very interesting in relation to artificial intelligence, which has it's own fair share of 'what makes it a person' type debate.
An Artificial Intelligence (potentially non-person) relating and empathizing with a fetus (also potentially non-person) -- that's an interesting thought.
I agree though, it does appear to be self-insertion on the part of the author. And, if it matters, I am pro-choice. I just think there is a lot of interesting stuff to be said on the topic of personhood.
Re:Banned by the Publisher
by ricketycricket on Wednesday February 10, 2016 @05:02PM
(#11076436)
You are making assumptions about the intent of the author you have no ability to make. To be so reductionist as to refer to the author as merely a misogynist "white man" is bigotry and your comment adds nothing to the conversation. In fact, if anything, your reaction proves his point.
Re:Banned by the Publisher
by tyingq on Wednesday February 10, 2016 @04:50PM
(#11076349)
Not trying to be snarky, honestly. But, this is fiction. Wouldn't you expect a fair amount of viewpoints you didn't agree with to be in a work of fiction? Even outrageous viewpoints?
I do agree that publishers have the latitude to decide what they publish, but it seems odd to complain about fictional viewpoints.
Re:Banned by the Publisher
by Zikes on Wednesday February 10, 2016 @04:55PM
(#11076376)
> Now if you’re thinking my novel is about the Pro Choice/ Pro Life debate, hold your horses. It’s not. I merely needed a reason, a one chapter reason, to justify the things my antagonist is about to do to the world without just making him a one-note 80’s action flick villain as voiced by John Lithgow. I wanted this villain to be Alan Rickman-deep. One chapter. That’s all.
It's not a particularly terrible trope. I mean, the I, Robot movie features an A.I. that [spoiler] tries to enslave (and even kills some of) humanity in order to take "protection" to its furthest logical extreme.
Politically-motivated characters aren't always representative of the author's political views, and even if they are then you have the simple option of not reading it.
If the publisher had turned around and tried to stop the author from publishing this themselves (via indie routes) or going to another publisher, sure, I'd agree that that would be akin to trying to "ban" something.
But the reality is here that the publisher just opted out of publishing this specific works, as is their right. Sorry, author, but you sound bitter. Move on.
However, I read this more as a warning that there is a bias in the publishing world and to not look at currently-published works in the aggregate as an unbiased body of work.
edit: and editors at other imprints owned by the same group will often take a different view.
Perhaps the story is as straight forward as Mr. Cole represented it; that HarperCollins declined to publish the novel because of the nature of the AI conflict described. Personally, it strikes me as oddly simplistic, and lacking in other context, given the success that Mr. Cole's previous work brought the publisher.
The nazis existed. They were real.
I don't like the modern fad of holocaust revisionism that says "anyone who talks about the nazis is ipso facto unable to make an argument (because the nazis were not real and there is not possibility that there could be a valid comparison between the conditions that allowed them to exist and conditions in current society-- because the nazis weren't real.)"
No, they were exercising their private property rights to publish only what they want to publish.
[1] http://monsterhunternation.com/2016/02/10/left-wing-bias-in-...
The fact that you say something controversial doesn't change the relationship between an author and a publisher from "I'll publish your book if I think it's good and will sell" into "I'll publish your book absolutely because it makes a political stand".
He's free to find another publisher, or as in this case, self-publish. This seems about as clear a case of "move along, nothing to see here" as the internet is capable of providing.
As far as I can tell no one gains in a society where the right refuses to work with the left and vis-versa. That just makes society harder for everyone.
What is far worse is when one side wields disproportionate power. Fiction has long played a role in advancing social morals. Imagine a case where in a society that was very, very homophobic. If books that featured lgbqt in a good light were not published... and it was considered okay because that is the publishers right, that would be a bad thing.
Finally, I think our rules on situations like this should be abstracted away from poltiical or social beliefs. It is easy to say that we can judge the publishers in my hypothetical wrong, because homophobia is bad, but the publishers in this actual instance okay, because there is nothing wrong with being pro-choice.
However there is a danger in that, and this is largely inspired by http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html, but we have been pretty bad as society and individuals at judging what is good. Which is why I am hesitant to be okay with censoring something I disagree with, it may very well turn out that I am wrong.
"Publisher asks author to change book" hardly seems worthy of attention.
Now, he may have signed a contract with this publisher that has the literary equivalent to a non-compete in it ( "You can only publish through us" ), but that's on him.
ps -- Daniel Wilson wrote Robopocalypse [1] which I found a good read; so there's at least one publisher in the sci-fi realm that continues to publish robot apocalypse fiction
[1] http://www.amazon.com/Robopocalypse-Contemporaries-Daniel-H-...
And, if so...which we have only his claim for, and its quite possible the publisher had other reasons, assuming its actually true that they refused it...so what? The right to make political choices about what you publish is exactly the central and most important part of the First Amendment's freedom of the press.
It does become worrying where there is a press monopoly or conspiring oligopoly preventing publication of certain political views and, so, suppressing them in the marketplace of ideas, but that's not happening here, and the evidence is the fact that his book is being published, and available through the dominant retail channel for such works.
What you're engaging in is part of the second way Correia predicted that Cole would be attacked and dismissed, namely, by quibbling over the exact definitions of "censorship" and "banned." Oh, and we have Cole's own words about why the publisher rejected the book. The publisher yanked the book of the schedule, without even asking first if Cole would revise the point that they found unacceptable.
There is not a conspiring oligopoly preventing publication of the political views at issue, which I know about and mention in this post because those views are in fact published in works that are available through major commercial channels.
There may be a group of major publishers with biases which result in them not publishing the views that Correia and Cole complain about being "banned", but it is not only not a "ban", but its not a conspiring (or even independently acting in the same interest -- which seems to be what you mean with the "de facto conspiracy" description) oligopoly with the power to prevent the views from being widely published and the works embodying the views from being readily available through major outlets. As is evidenced by the fact that the views are widely published, and the works containing them are readily available through major outlets. Including, emphatically, the work of Cole's that this thread concerns.
> What you're engaging in is part of the second way Correia predicted that Cole would be attacked and dismissed, namely, by quibbling over the exact definitions of "censorship" and "banned."
I absolutely agree that this is censorship. The right to censor works one publishes is central the right of freedom of the press. No quibbling there.
But when it comes to "ban", yes, I certainly disagree that with any description that this is a ban -- not only by a strict definition, but even by a loose analogy. I certainly agree that were there an alignment (conspiratorial or not) of publishers collectively wielding enough power over the market that could and did prevent certain political views from receiving wide circulation, that would be a lot like a ban. And, I'm open to the idea that, for some views, such an alignment does exist. But what happened to Cole is not evidence of anything that is even remotely similar to a ban. Because the book is being published, in a manner which makes it available through the single most significant outlet for retailing books, one which has a majority of the market for books.
> Oh, and we have Cole's own words about why the publisher rejected the book.
Cole is, obviously, not a neutral source of information on the matter.
[1] "Cliquish, Holier-than-thou, Obnoxious, Reactionary, Fanatics." A coinage by Brad Torgersen. See e.g. https://bradrtorgersen.wordpress.com/2015/03/31/chorf-its-a-...
What next, "banned from acting" when the author auditions for a commercial but the producers pick someone else?
The book was prevented from being published in approximately the same way a book advocating communism would have been effectively banned from publication in the 1950s (via whisper campaigns, implied or explicit threats of blacklisting, etc).
edit: sometimes this is justifiable: for example, a book titled 'Hitler, Stalin, Mao Zedong and Kim Jong Un: misunderstood heroes?' would probably also be effectively banned via social pressure.
Yes, there is a meaningful distinction between a publisher deciding not to publish a book, and a book being banned. While there may certainly be conditions where private action is so powerful in a given marketplace it is substantially equivalent to a government prohibition and raises the same issues, this isn't one. There are other publishers, and there has never been a time when self-publishing and bypassing major publishers -- especially for an already successful writer -- is easier.
The fact that this whole complaint is actually a promotional piece for the book, which is in fact being published through Amazon's direct publishing offering, demonstrates exactly why the distinction between a publisher choosing not to publish a book and the book actually being banned is a meaningful -- night-and-day -- distinction.
> The book was prevented from being published
No, it was, in fact, not prevented from being published. The first two sentences of the article are "I launched a book this week and I went Indie with it. Indie means I released it on Amazon via Kindle Direct Publishing."
Prevented from being published via established channels, then. The analogy still holds, because in the 1950s you could still publish content considered communist in photocopied zines.
Kindle Direct Publishing has been around about as long as the Kindle (they were, IIRC, announced at the same time), and is backed by the dominant online book and ebook retailer. Its a pretty well-established channel.
> The analogy still holds, because in the 1950s you could still publish content considered communist in photocopied zines.
The analogy does not, even remotely, hold, because such photocopied zines would not be available via major retail outlets, whereas Kindle Direct Publishing is directly sponsored by the dominant retail outlet.
However in this specific case we're talking about one publisher not agreeing to publish. There's no presented information to assume collusion between publishers or some larger game at play to suppress this book or the author.
I absolutely think that private organisations can effectively ban something without government intervention. I just don't think that happened here.
Oh, absolutely. To be honest I'm not terribly interested in the specifics of this case, just the general idea that today, when so much communication happens on privately-owned platforms, corporate censorship is not censorship because only governments censor.
If you're wondering what that looks like from the customer perspective, you can see (or not see) our banned best sellers here: http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Books-Erotica-Manga/zgbs/...
The former is a significant bar to reaching customers, the latter not so much.
The ranty and bitter tone of the author does him no favours, certainly, but taking him off the publication list before contacting him, and for something so (to my mind) frankly silly, quite understandably would feel like enough of a kick in the teeth that irrational anger is pretty understandable.
This is the same ploy as the "banned" super bowl commercial scam. Submit something obviously unacceptable and then cry foul when it gets refused hoping to get views via the media attention.
It's pretty simple. Get rejected, complain about how the man is holding you down, and hope the free publicity rolls in. It's marketing.
Free speech protects you from censorship from the government, not from a private company that doesn't like your book and so chooses not to invest their money and time in publishing it. Free speech does not mean other people have to listen to you, take you seriously, or do what you want them to.
Free speech means you can throw your little tantrum in public and the government cannot tell you to shut the fuck up. Rightly so, that is left to society in general to do.
I feel like in Sci-Fi, there's often this dynamic between Creator/AI as a Parent/Child relationship, so the idea that a nascent artificial intelligence would perceive abortion as threatening or scary is, in my opinion, a super cool idea.
I didn't read his book, so maybe it really was just anti-choice drek. But from only reading his blog post, it sounds to me like a nugget of an interesting idea with not-as-interesting execution.
The correct corollary between a fetus would be the uncompiled source code of an AI, or possibly an unexecuted binary. Neither are alive and certainly neither are conscious.
An AI literally exterminating humanity because "abortion is murder" is clearly self-insertion on the part of the author in a way that civil society should not tolerate any more than an AI being a white nationalist.
That being said, I still think it's an interesting concept. I don't think that the AI assuming personhood of a fetus is inherently wrong. There are plenty of philosophical arguments about what constitutes personhood, and how that effects the topic of abortion.
Again, this is something that I think could be potentially very interesting in relation to artificial intelligence, which has it's own fair share of 'what makes it a person' type debate.
An Artificial Intelligence (potentially non-person) relating and empathizing with a fetus (also potentially non-person) -- that's an interesting thought.
I agree though, it does appear to be self-insertion on the part of the author. And, if it matters, I am pro-choice. I just think there is a lot of interesting stuff to be said on the topic of personhood.
>I wanted the readers to empathize, as best they could, with our future Robot overlords
So yes, this is intended to be something the reader identifies with.
I do agree that publishers have the latitude to decide what they publish, but it seems odd to complain about fictional viewpoints.
It's not a particularly terrible trope. I mean, the I, Robot movie features an A.I. that [spoiler] tries to enslave (and even kills some of) humanity in order to take "protection" to its furthest logical extreme.
Politically-motivated characters aren't always representative of the author's political views, and even if they are then you have the simple option of not reading it.
It is totally fair to infer that the book is a representation of the author's abhorrent political views.