Probably the best thing to do (not that I've tried it) would be to get a Goodreads account, find people who seem to like the same books as you, and look at stuff they've liked that you haven't read.

What I do is just semi-randomly buy cheap paperbacks whenever I'm going on a trip. The results are as random as you might think, but I don't waste a lot of money this way, and find some good stuff.

My wife's strategy is to buy compilations either edited by, or with submissions from authors she likes. She's a smart woman, and more of a fan than I, so her method would probably be the smarter bet. :-)

Another mostly Baen reader here.

IMHO, honestly I don't give a crap. Really. I have my favorite authors, as does every other fan. Hugo's don't factor into my buying decisions at all. If they do, its to show me books to avoid (based on my past history with Hugo winners).

My wife (a much bigger fan than I) buys mostly female authors. I buy (barely) mostly men. I find female authors have trouble making believable (to me as a lifetime male) male characters, and that can be distracting. I'm sure my wife finds the equivalent with male authors. So most of our library at home is female authors, naturally. In a completely fair universe (ha!) Hugos would mostly go to people who aren't white men every year, because a minority of English speakers are white men.

In the meantime (I suspect from now until the extinction of the Human race), if voters want to use awards to promote writers they think are under-promoted, for whatever, they should do that. Seriously. Knock yourselves out. It probably won't effect me much, but go for it.

Perhaps a day will come where Hugos are a reliable indicator of works I will like, but its never worked that way in the past.

Another good question is how much of its promotion has to do with exactly that. Several posters have already pointed out that for its supposed use (camping) this solution is actually significantly worse than currently available options. So perhaps we should all just quit pretending that this product isn't intended almost solely for the purpose you describe above.

Back in the 80's, MADD was formed with the purpose of blackmailing all the states into banning alchohol sales to anyone under 21. This of course includes a good 3 years of actual voters, but fuck them, there are more over 21 than under, so we can just outvote them! Yes folks, a portion of the electorate can gang up on another portion and take their rights away. MADD has shown us the way. They accomplished this by getting Congress to threaten to take away their highway funds unless they complied. (BTW: Extra credit goes to Louisiana here for being about the last state to give in).

They got to my state just at the perfect time that the "grandfathering" of the new law assured people 1 year older than me could legally drink for 3 years while I could not. I didn't even like alcohol, but this completely pissed me off. 30 years later, and I still hold a grudge. I hate MADD with the heat of 1000 suns. Anything they are against, I'm automatically for. In 30 years, that rule has held me in good stead.

There's also a very underappreciated value to experience. You can be the smartest person in the world, and have all the world's facts at your fingertips, but if you've never experienced something personally, there's a good chance you just don't have the mental framework to begin to understand that situation. This is how you get very smart people explaining to actual (very experienced) poor people how they have no business "letting" themselves be poor, and must just be inferior humans in some way. This is how you get "mansplaining" and "whitesplaining".

Sometimes the best thing to do, even if you are a really smart person (heck, particularly if you are a really smart person), is to STFU and listen to people who have different experiences than you. If a lot of them are saying the same thing, but it doesn't jibe with the information you have, you are almost certainly missing something.

During the runup to the second Gulf War there was a story circulating about how The Empire was really the good guys and the Rebel Alliance was just a bunch of terrorists. The sad part was, in the logic of the time it was being sold by many as a serious argument. Not even a joke. Here's a link to it from 2002 in The Weekly Standard

So yeah, this has already happened.

Not exactly. By the definition of "abortion" that most pro-lifer's like to use (any pregnancy termination after fertilization of an egg), hormone-based birth control in some circumstances does cause abortions.

Banning The Pill of course would have massive social implications, but that's precisely where the absolutist line of thinking leads one.

You don't really have to imagine this. I've personally been refused service in Indiana due to the fact that some members of my group were black.

This is just an attempt to codify the existing practice of discrimination in Indiana. That's why it passed and got signed. These are in fact the people's representatives doing what the "good people of Indiana" want.

I beg to differ. Your governors are elected there via MAJORITY vote, right?

It may not be your fault that there are idiots among you, but it most certainly IS your fault that you elected one to lead you.

I think he meant "traditional marriage". That's where neither spouse has actually met (except possibly at an extended family gathering), and an exchange of goods between the two families is involved to balance out the transfer of female property. Quite likely arranged while one or both parties are infants. If the man wants romance, he takes a concubine (of his preferred gender).

You newfangled Victorians with your love-based marriages just don't understand traditional values.

"No one"? Do the minorities they mistakenly kill count, or does it have to be some white middle-class dude with a twitch channel?

Actually, the Republicans had rather a lot to do with the drafting of it, even if none of them voted for it in the end. It went a lot like this:

R: If you remove X, I might vote for it.

Obama: OK, it now doesn't have X.

R: Psyche! Not good enough, sucker. Hahaha! But seriously, if you add Y, then I might vote for it.

Obama: OK, it now has Y.

R: OMG! Everybody, come look at Y! That's Death Panels! Obama wants to kill your grandmother!...