[PeterStuer]

This reads like an extremely one sided take with a myopic US west coast moralising slant. The author seems oblivious to the irony of calling something worldcon, then throwing a tantrum if the world does dare not to prostrate to their idiological microbubble.

[donaldihunter]

What an odd take. I don't see the moralising or the tantrum, just a take on events that happened and the likely consequences. I don't think you're getting a myopic US west coast viewpoint from a British author.

[abosley]

+1 Stross is decidedly the opposite of the stereotypical US west coast sci-fi author.

[falcor84]

You can say a lot of negative things about it, but it's most definitely not a "micro" bubble. The ideological influence of the US West Coast on the world at large during the past century has been de-facto defining much of the global culture, even if you limit it to just Hollywood and the Silicon Valley.

A world that were to shrug off this influence would be, for better or worse, fundamentally different.

[cstross]

Not only am I not Californian, I'm not American: I'm a left-wing Scot living in Edinburgh.

[PeterStuer]

That's what I deserve for just quickly skimming an article on the trone on my phone.

I guess the gratuitous Trump trope succeeded trowing me off a more nuanced reading.

Mb.