Pluralistic: 28 Jun 2020


Today's links



Locus Awards winners (permalink)

Congrats to the winners of this year's Locus Awards!

https://locusmag.com/2020/06/locus-awards-winners-2020/

Best SF Novel: The City in the Middle of the Night, Charlie Jane Anders

Best Fantasy Novel: Middlegame, Seanan McGuire

Best Horror Novel : Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Marlon James

Best YA Novel: Dragon Pearl, Yoon Ha Lee

Best First Novel: Gideon the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir

Best Novella: This Is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone

Best Novelette: Omphalos, Ted Chiang

Best Short Story: Bookstore at the End of America, Charlie Jane Anders

Best Anthology: New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color, Nisi Shawl

Best Collection: Exhalation, Ted Chiang

Best Magazine: Tor.com

Best Publisher: Tor Books

Best Editor: Ellen Datlow

Best Artist: John Picacio

Best Nonfiction: Monster, She Wrote: The Women Who Pioneered Horror and Speculative Fiction, Lisa Kröger & Melanie R. Anderson

Best Art Book: Spectrum 26: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art, John Fleskes

Special prize for inclusivity and representation education: Writing the Other, Nisi Shawl and K Tempest Bradford



Bailouts should come with strings attached (permalink)

Maybe you've noticed a rising skepticism of unfettered capitalism, even among the establishment. Much of that shift comes from economist Mariana Mazzucato, whose 2013 "The Entrepreneurial State" was a groundbreaking critique of the market's role in growth.

https://boingboing.net/2016/01/06/the-entrepreneurial-state-how.html

Her "Rethinking Capitalism" course are absolutely essential, like the Feynman Lectures, but for economics.

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/basc/study/current-students/degree-pathways/rethinking-capitalism

In an editorial with Anto Andreoni, the economists make a case that businesses that receive pandemic bailouts should face stringent conditions, so that funds "are reinvested productively instead of being captured by narrow or speculative interests."

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/conditional-bailouts-of-private-companies-2020-crisis-by-mariana-mazzucato-and-antonio-andreoni-2020-06

This is already par for the course in much of the world. France's auto-sector bailout requires that companies manufacture 1m clean-energy cars by 2025, and Renault must open new battery plants.

In France and Germany, bailed out airlines are now partly owned by the public.

By contrast, Italy and the UK have rewarded failing companies for engaging in financial engineering and other dirty tricks: Fiat got EUR6.3B even though it dodges its taxes and is MIA on electric vehicles. Easyjet got GBP600m right after flushing GBP174m on dividends.

In the US, Uncle Sucker is snapping up junk bonds, providing massive cash payouts to frackers and other economic zombies that are destroying the only known planet in the entire universe capable of sustaining human life.

It doesn't have to be that way. Denmark and France have declared that companies domiciled in financial secrecy jurisdictions won't get a penny, and in the USA, Elizabeth Warren has proposed a slate of conditions for bailouts.

Included in Warren's package: "higher minimum wages, worker representation on corporate boards, and enduring restrictions on dividends, stock buybacks, and executive bonuses."

You can read more about Mazzucato here:

https://boingboing.net/2019/11/28/freeriders-v-capture.html



This day in history (permalink)

#10yrsago My Twitter debate with Minister who introduced Canada's DMCA https://eaves.ca/2010/06/28/minister-moore-and-the-myth-of-market-forces/

#10yrsago UK government hushed up internal analysis of anti-drug strategy to avoid ridicule https://transform-drugs.blogspot.com/2010/06/home-office-internal-document-reveals.html

#10yrsago Canadian cops' history of agents provocateurs and the G20 https://boingboing.net/2010/06/28/canadian-cops-histor.html

#10yrsago Globe and Mail journalist arrested and kettled at G20 Toronto https://web.archive.org/web/20100630110103/http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/g8-g20/toronto/caught-in-the-storm-penned-in-at-queen-street/article1621255/

#5yrsago BBC's list of pages de-indexed through Europe's "right to be forgotten" https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/internet/entries/1d765aa8-600b-4f32-b110-d02fbf7fd379

#1yrago Felony Contempt of Business Model: Lexmark's anti-competitive legacy https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/felony-contempt-business-model-lexmarks-anti-competitive-legacy

#1yrago Three Halflings in a Trenchcoat: a homebrew fighter class for D&D; https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/c6fdw4/oc_introducing_three_halflings_in_a_trenchcoat_a/

#1yrago Microsoft is about to shut off its ebook DRM servers: "The books will stop working" https://boingboing.net/2019/06/28/jun-17-2004.html

#1yrago Improving Q&As; with peer-review https://twitter.com/tuckeve/status/1141501425106739200

#1yrago Howto: stay civil while discussing the children in America's concentration camps https://www.theonion.com/tips-for-staying-civil-while-debating-child-prisons-1827147411



Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources: Tor.com (https://www.tor.com), Naked Capitalism (https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/).

Currently writing:

  • My next novel, "The Lost Cause," a post-GND novel about truth and reconciliation. Friday's progress: 559 words (32358 total).

  • A short story, "Making Hay," for MIT Tech Review. Friday's progress: 304 words (3922 total)

Currently reading: Goliath, Matt Stoller.

Latest podcast: Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town (part 07) https://craphound.com/podcast/2020/06/22/someone-comes-to-town-someone-leaves-town-part-07-2/

Upcoming appearances:

Upcoming books: "Poesy the Monster Slayer" (Jul 2020), a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Pre-order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed copy here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1562/_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer.html.

"Attack Surface": The third Little Brother book, Oct 20, 2020. https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250757531

"Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html


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